Echoes
by gotw3
Summary: What's the best thing to do when you're born into a world of pirates, dæmons, and devils? Live your life to the fullest, she supposes. SI-OC Dæmon AU.
1. Chapter 1: She

The weirdest part isn't the pirates. It's the _dæmons_.

He's a presence she feels from her oldest new memory, warm and soft and _there_. He's with her long after her (new) parents disappear, long after she's alone. No- not alone, not really.

She has him.

And, eventually, she has them, too.

* * *

Memories are so hard to cling to.

Even her small hands, however, can easily hold onto her… hers. (Shouldn't they be bigger?) When she gets confused and quiet, Ilirya shifts quick and small, something furry and soft and huggable she can clutch to her chest. She likes cats, knows how to read the lash of their tails and quirk of their ears and long slow blinks, so even though that's all entirely superfluous with Ilirya because he _speaks_, he's often in cat form anyways, long-furred or short haired or bob-tailed, a kitten that purrs and kneads her rhythmically in comfort. She wonders if he'll settle that way, wonders if it's selfish to hope for it, tells herself it's too early to tell. He's a part of her, she knows that, and he won't do anything he doesn't want, but having something so entirely you exist as a creature so intrinsically understanding of your needs and desires is-

Well, it's unfamiliarly familiar. Like she knows of it but has never _known _it, not like this, deep in her bones.

Everything seems unfamiliarly familiar, to be honest.

* * *

Ilirya talks to her. Never to anyone else. He stays quiet and clinging to her unless they're alone, a wide-eyed tarsier curled up small or a gecko clinging to her collar or a nesting chick in the crook of her arms, because there's only adults, here, no kids her age (are they her age?) to play with. Just Makino, who she loves, but Makino works full time now, she _owns _the bar. She can't afford to be distracted.

So she and Ilirya toddle around, minds blurry and uncertain. She's three years old, knows that things are different but she can't quite _concentrate_-

People's dæmons do sometimes talk to other people, though. It's only for the very close, and it's a sign of trust and intimacy, but it's not taboo as she remembers(?) it, because she sees it around the village when Makino carries her around on her errands, peers with wide eyes at the world she can't yet explore. Married people do it, usually, or parent and child, or (sometimes) very close friends. Siblings. Family and extended family. Every shape and size of dæmon interacting with each other and their other half's precious humans, a cascade of sensory input and oddities, tall and short and drab and colorful and feathered and scaled. The fantastic becomes mundane.

Paloma talks to her, sometimes, though it's not often because Makino's parents are proper and traditional. It's usually only when Makino gets panicked enough from her wandering that she raises her voice at her and Paloma clings to Makino's shirtfront and squeaks high-pitched reprimands in chorus with Makino's rising pitch (_we were so worried, you could have gotten HURT, have some sense-_) and her black eyes glitter like tiny beads, dark as Makino's own and equally as afraid.

She pretends she doesn't know what this means.

* * *

Paloma talks to her other times, too (well, not exactly, but-), when Makino reads bedtime stories in a soft voice and the dæmon nestles in the hollow of Makino's neck as they lay in the cramped single bed in the back room of the bar. She's cuddling up to Makino's shoulder, pressed against the wall (small enough to feel dwarfed, so small, too small) with Ilirya teeny and soft (like Paloma) for bedtime and Paloma's almost close enough to touch, just inches away, striped fur soft and downy looking in the dark, stripes and twitching nose and tiny limbs. Only knowing that she _really_ shouldn't do it stops her eager fingers.

Paloma whispers the words along with Makino, layering squeaky soprano over soothing alto. She's curled up tiny and cuddly, and if she's this tiny now, smaller than a clementine, how will the dæmon look when Ilirya and her get bigger? Minuscule, probably.

(At the end of it all, whenever she hears Paloma's voice, she thinks of Makino screaming because she cares. That, or she's brought back to the soothing dark and comfort of Makino, cuddling warm and safe under raggedy blankets when her biggest worry was sleep.

She will look back on this with desperate yearning.)

* * *

Here's a secret she's not supposed to know: Makino's her actual mom.

Not her sister.

Makino's parents die. Her mother dies (a long-legged, delicate spider, pale gold and big as a child's palm that spins webs with greater complexity than the finest woven lace) and her father dies (a great ram with curled horns and rickety legs, muzzle gray with age and slow-blinking eyes with oblong pupils), and people think that they're her parents, too. In some ways, they are. They smile and talk and move and breathe. Alive. Real.

She's two when they die (one after the other, the ram and then the spider) within the span of three months. Her heart forgets and her stupid _brain_ that can't hold onto anything forgets too, as the months melt like cotton candy in the rain and fade into nothing. Compared to what she's known, it barely even hurts. Even with the funerals and Makino's sobs and the well-meaning consolations from the rest of the close-knit community of villagers, the mayor. It barely even-

Makino, a banished queen, regains the throne, cloaked in mourning black. She takes over the bar. She cries and cries and cries.

She cries too, but Ilirya takes it worse. He shifts to a hairy spider and clings, which she hates, and then shortly thereafter to a black lamb with matchstick legs, and that's almost worse. The whole thing breaks Makino's heart, sends deep cracks spiderwebbing into the foundations as Makino tries to keep it all together, and when it's all over and the too-kind villagers dressed in black and their silent dæmons empty from the bar and it's quiet except for the sound of Makino's sobs, Ilirya shifts to a mourning dove and stays that way for four more months. For a child, this is an eternity. An eternity of grief.

People think that Makino is a sister stepping up to perform as a mother. _How brave_, they whisper. _How noble._ The bar gets more regulars.

Makino _is_ brave, and she is noble. They're just all wrong about the semantics. About the act.

* * *

It's storytime and she's falling asleep. Paloma is still whispering along, soft voice soothing and quiet while Makino falls silent, and she can feel Makino's hand stroking over her hair, hear the shaky breaths of restrained sobs.

"Oh, my child," she whispers, heartbroken. It's hard to hear over the soft susurrations of Paloma, the rise and fall of dragons and princesses. "What am I going to do?"

She can't say the same for her head, but her heart already knows.

* * *

Here's another secret: she's not supposed to be here.

* * *

But neither is Ilirya.

She can't bring herself to regret him.

* * *

Ilirya gives up being a dove. Luffy arrives. Many things slot into place.

He's wide eyed and so _small_, smaller than her, even, and she's taller and taller every year but she's still tiny. His dæmon is always always always changing, flitting alarmingly far from him in ever-widening orbit before coming back to land on his shoulder and chatter in his ear, a hummingbird, a red squirrel, a streak of green that she later realizes is an anole. Whatever his dæmon is, she talks _loud_, doesn't care if people hear. She's almost envious.

When they meet, she hides behind Makino's leg and peeps around it warily. Ilirya shifts to a wolfhound puppy and tries to growl but he sounds like a teakettle instead, oversized paws and floppy ears and steely gray fur as he peeps from between her ankles at this… pair.

There is a mountain of a man with a massive Saint Bernard dogging his heels standing in front (Makino versus Mountain Man, two powerful generals), holding Luffy back with one massive hand spanning the boy's whole torso as the boy in question tries to wiggle out and say hello, excited as a puppy (she's honestly surprised there's no tail wagging). This is Garp, which she knows because Makino greeted him politely (_you look well, Garp-san_) and he booms a laugh before skipping the pleasantries and bellowing about leaving his grandson in her care, another kid wouldn't be too much trouble, right?

Luffy's dæmon is a pygmy marmoset now (smaller than an _apple_), hanging off Garp's dæmon's neck fur, crawling all over and rooting through its ruff as it chatters in the St. Bernard's ear. It looks incredibly annoying, and she stares, fascinated, as Makino wearily accepts and the whole conversation goes flying over her head.

Garp apologizes for breaking the wall and pays for the renovations and another bed for Luffy. That, she doesn't miss.

* * *

Luffy is very talkative.

He's also very _touchy_, and he infringes on Makino's storytime which means she hates him for a bit, until Luffy trips one day maybe two weeks later when he's running after her as she tries to wander 'round front yard as she usually does, and he cries. She comforts him (Ilirya is a silent porcupine waddling after her in utter solidarity but they both stop when they hear the first stifled sob from the fall, the first strangled attempt to silence tears and that's so so familiar she can't-).

She comforts him.

He hugs her back with his scrawny arms like he's never gotten a hug in his life, other than the ones he's smuggled from Makino which are probably not as often as he'd like even though Makino gives them generously. He's so young, so fragile, and she doesn't know his past but she might know his future. That doesn't mean he's not a real person, not a real little boy crying in front of her, and her attempts at apathy shatter as her empathy chokeholds her into submission until she's crying, too, feeling equally young and lost.

Ilirya is _matching_ Luffy's dæmon, both teeny-tiny squirrel monkeys with long tails and button black eyes and dark muzzles and he _clings_, Ilirya and Luffy both, the latter to her front and the former draping over her shoulder. Ilirya is a bit too close to Luffy, she's very aware of it, but Luffy's dæmon is nestled on his shoulder opposite Ilirya, a little too close to her, too, so it hardly matters. His arms wrap around her so tight that it hurts. There's a wet patch spreading on the shoulder of her shirt, snot and tears and drool.

She lets him tag along.

* * *

Turns out adventures are more fun with four. Well, two sets of two.

Jokes on him because she actually _loves_ hugs, just doesn't care for people she doesn't know touching her. Luffy has wormed his way into her good graces, so he gets a free pass.

They get older and taller and Luffy gleefully takes to linking hands with her and tugging her _everywhere_. That, or hanging off her like a baby monkey when he gets tired. He's close enough to her size that it does _not_ work, but he does it anyways.

He shares the punishment when she gives up and collapses mutinously to the ground, so. All's fair.

(Truth is, she's so happy to have a friend she'd have tolerated almost anything. Lucky for her that his worst flaws aren't dealbreakers, and that all he wants in exchange for his undying loyalty is hugs and companionship. She's got the both of them in spades.)

He's sort of like one of those cats you feed that follows you home and won't leave you alone, but she finds she doesn't really want him to. He's not mangy (Makino wrangles him into semi-regular baths) or mean, just excitable and talkative and a whole lotta trouble. And it's just so _fun_, having a playmate, someone to _talk_ to and listen to and run around with. It's good.

(Luffy talks more than she does, but ever since she and Luffy became friends, she's started actually _talking_, to Makino's relief, so his waterhose-to-the-face-style chatter mostly just means that he plays distraction more often. He's good at that.

Her voice is small and high-pitched and melodious like Makino's and she hates the sound of it. Luffy loves when she talks, though, always laughs at her jokes, so that balances it out. Sort of. She gets used to it. It's nice having a captive audience.)

Their dæmons tussle, speak to one another cautiously and then easily, playing and play fighting, switching between the two easier than flicking a switch as the days pass one-by-one and then faster than they can count. Luffy's dæmon talks to her sometimes, too. At first it's just single words - _run!_ coupled with the sharp toothed grin of a weasel, _hide_ hissed by a glittering black serpent no longer than the span of the tip of her middle finger to her wrist - and then it's more, and Ran opens up to her almost as fast as Luffy, following just barely behind like an afterimage, slowly and then all at once. It's nice to talk to a girl, sometimes, as much of a girl as Luffy's soul in the form of pure animalistic mischief can be. They don't get a chance to _talk_ talk (they're all young and the yard is wide and then the town is full of more adventure than they can handle), but they do a little and she likes Ran a _lot_. Ilirya likes Luffy, too, and they all get along like houses on fire. Makino is horrified, pleased, and impressed, but perhaps less impressed at the ruckus they tend to kick up wherever they go.

The ruckus is a result of the adventure, so they don't promise Makino they'll stop getting in trouble even when her and Paloma lecture them. They just apologize, and chorus _yes, Makino_, when she asks them if they'll be more careful next time, _take care of yourselves, please_, and they nod and they mean it. It's very telling of their probable future that Makino values safety over rule adherence.

They always take care of each other. The scrapes and bruises are just battle scars, as much a part of the adventure as the grins and hysterical laughs, and they're avoided whenever possible.

(She thinks of Ran squeaking in alarm as Luffy trips and careens into a fruit stall at the market, Ilirya barking encouragements as she sprints away away away with Luffy hanging off her back and Ran flying in dizzying circles overhead, Luffy's skinny arms wound tight around her neck, and damn his twisted ankle and damn Mister Salvador for caring so much about a stupid prize watermelon, it hadn't even won the yearly contest anyways, it got _second place-_)

They do try. For Makino. They just don't really succeed.

Ran and Ilirya don't match again after that first time, except for the rare (extremely common) times they all get into trouble from nicking something and people see (or care) and they all break into a sprint as fast as their stubby legs can carry them for a quick getaway. Then, or when they're all laughing and joy's leaking out of them like gold and they just _match_. Then, too.

Ran likes being in the shape of animals that can _move_, that can run or jump or fly and sing for the sheer joy of it. Ilirya starts to trend towards the same, and she doesn't hate it. It's fun. Way more fun to have someone who laughs at your jokes unreservedly and gets into trouble, unreservedly in that case, too, and who's _loyal_. She'd never expected- never hoped to expect someone loyal, not when all she had was Ilirya (who's wholly, completely hers and on her side, always) and Makino (who's obligated to love her so it didn't count). She's not sure if Luffy really loves her, but one night when Makino says her usual (but no less meaningful) _love you_ to the both of them in her quiet, sleepy voice, they echo back _love you too_ and then Luffy breaks script, turns to her, peering across the great gulf of Makino, peering at her with serious eyes and an expression she can't see in the dark. _Love you,_ he says.

* * *

Their favorite place is the market. Their real favorite place is the forest, but they're technically not allowed to go there, so they tell Makino it's the market.

The market is crowded (only open certain days of the week, certain hours, confusing and irregular to throw off outsiders, but they have those memorized like the back of their dæmon's hands/paws/claws), and there's plenty of food and things and _people_. She doesn't love the crowd, crushing and stifling as it is, filled with adults doing business with faces all serious (she keeps Ilirya close to her chest), but she loves seeing all the dæmons and the pretty things on display and she's with Luffy, anyways, so it's tolerable. They learn to steal, badly at first and then better. The villagers let them because it's usually just food and they never steal anything important (except when they do and then they get in trouble). The market is _fun_.

The forest leading up to the mountain is exciting, though. In a different way. Ilirya shifts to a fledgling starling, a fawn, a wolf pup, a bear cub, and he romps through the underbrush and sniffs at things and flits from branch to branch. He makes a glorious nuisance of himself, but not _nearly_ so much as Ran does. Ran yowls, hoots, screeches, and attracts all kinds of dangerous attention until they get _very_ good at running away. They only almost die a few times, and there's one especially heartstopping moment when Luffy trips and she has to skid to a stop, _turn around_ and steal him from right under the downswing of an enraged bear, but he saves her, too. They get better at running, better at dodging, and she never ran from bears and lions in the forest in her past life, but in her past life, she never had Ilirya, either.

Or Luffy. Or Ran.

* * *

In the midst of all the changing seasons, Garp visits.

He picks Luffy up like so much luggage, sets off towards the forest and throws a _he'll be back in a few days_ over his shoulder to Makino, and no, absolutely not, she's not letting him take Luffy anywhere without her. Who knows what'd happen to him otherwise?

It's awkward and stilted, because- well, Luffy is Garp's grandson, and according to Garp that means he has full purview to knock the hell out of Luffy whenever he likes. But she's Makino's, tagging along because she won't leave Luffy alone, and that makes things… complicated.

So, Garp funnels all training into secondhand violence. _He_ can't beat them up, but the monkeys of the forest sure as hell can (dammit, animal last names are supposed to be for _show_), and Garp is on oddly good terms with them so they do so on an _exceedingly_ regular basis. They're varied as anything, ranging from tiny and wide-eyed (dangerous in groups for their speed and surprisingly sharp teeth) to (during one memorable stretch of several days) _massive_, silverback gorillas that Garp doesn't dare get too close to, only inclining his head and respect and whispering _be careful. They're not the biggest thing in this forest, but they're some of the strongest._ He's taken them into a thickly forested grove, deeper where the sunlight can barely filter through the trees, and he holds them on his shoulders like the gorillas hold their young, tells them later that this is to teach them a lesson. _Every creature has its home turf. Know what they can do, and be careful if things call for it. Some mistakes you can't take back, and some allies will be more valuable than you can imagine._

Despite the hell of getting beat up by monkeys, she starts to like him a little.

* * *

She's seven and her whole life is Luffy and Makino, and the adventures they have around the village and forest every day are only topped by Makino's tender attentions when they return, bandages for scrapes and kisses for bruises and _storytime_. They're getting older and the bed is getting smaller but Luffy and Ilirya and Ran still all curl up beside Makino (dæmons touching proper humans only, except maybe sometimes accidentally when they fall asleep). It happens every night when it gets dark (when the bar's not too busy for Makino to duck out from behind the counter), and life is good when she doesn't think of her blurry past life or the deja-vu of her current one.

(She told Ilirya, years and years before, as soon as she could speak in choppy, babyish commontongue, a bastardized version of japanese and english. She told him everything. Ilirya, her soul, her other, already knew.

It's good that he knows about this second chance, because she's pretty sure she has no idea what's going on.)

* * *

Luffy's six when Shanks comes strolling into Makino's bar.

He's red-haired and scarred and stubbly and grinning and just _dripping_ with charisma, no dæmon in sight, and the fact of it alienates her. (It could be small and hiding in his clothes. There's no reason why not. She just… doesn't think so. He doesn't look like someone with a vole or moth dæmon.) The whole thing is frightening and exciting to imagine, but she doesn't want to be separated from Ilirya, ever, so she stares, wide-eyed and amazed at rest of the pirate crew: equally strange and interesting, all types of people (no women, though, she notices in disappointment) with incredible dæmons. She spots a wallaby hopping alongside a man built like a sake-barrel, a thin mantis perched on the shoulder of a man with an apathetic expression and a sword belted to his waist (a swordsman, _cool_), an armadillo scuttling around and nipping at ankles, a mean-looking eel in a long, sturdy looking tank that someone's pulling behind them in a wheelbarrow, a _monkey_, Luffy's gonna go crazy over that one-

She'd ask Luffy if he feels the same, except she already knows the answer and he's too busy going off like a bottle rocket or a fizzy soda foaming over. All the pirate stories Makino told them at bedtime must've gotten to him.

* * *

Life is so exciting that she forgets about the fruit.

She's forgotten a lot of things, these days, lost in Shanks' stories and laughter and the joy his crew brings. It's just the really important things that she remembers, like Makino's birthday (they badly burn everything they cook her for breakfast), or the open days at the market, or just how fast she needs to dodge so the worst of the bears can't hit her, or where to find the windmill with the best view of the sunset, or all the back alleys, or-

Except this is important so she should have remembered and she didn't.

Because now Luffy is made of rubber. And Ran is made of rubber, too.

Except not _really_, and Luffy still has flesh and bone (he can bleed, he cut his face before it all and there was blood everywhere and Ran cried out in such betrayal and pain that he promised _never, never again_), and she can't touch Ran so she wouldn't know if it's even the same, but Luffy stretches. It makes his hugs that much more inescapable.

Shanks and his crew stay for a year. They tell stories and drink and eat and the bar becomes _home_ again, bright and merry and happy. Makino smiles more. Luffy gets _so_ excited about being a pirate. He says he's going to be the best ever, and she laughs until Luffy's lower lip starts to wobble and he asks if she doesn't believe in him.

She's not laughing because she doesn't believe, she tells him. She's laughing because she can't wait.

* * *

Shanks saves Luffy's life and he doesn't lose an arm. This is rather promising, she thinks.

Shanks doesn't lose an arm because his dæmon, a tiger shark bigger than the damn _rowboat_, splinters the sturdy wood with a bite and takes a chunk out of Higuma, besides. The whole thing capsizes.

Higuma screams and tries to swim, his cape mole rat dæmon clinging to his hair (ironic considering his epithet), screaming shrilly, but the blood in the water must do _something_ to attract the resident megafauna because the lord of the coast snaps him and the boat out of the water entirely soon after, man and dæmon both. The sight would be terrifying, if she saw it, a man and his soul reduced to a snack, snatched off the surface of the ocean by gnashing teeth, but she doesn't see.

She's too busy frantically trying to keep Luffy's head above water to notice. He's flailing, floundering, but Ran is sleek and gray as a dolphin trying to keep him up, helping, and god help her but if Ran also couldn't swim, Luffy would probably be underwater by now. She kicks her legs, holds onto Luffy tight, thanks Makino repeatedly in her head for the swimming lessons when she was five (_thanks_ _for_ _the_ _refresher_, _Makino_), and promises to never steal anything again if they make it out of this unscathed. Ilirya is an otter, pushing up from below to try and relieve some of the pressure, anything, and he's definitely touching Luffy but she can't even feel her own toes, let alone any metaphysical soul-touching sensations beyond her panic.

The sea king lunges, and Shanks' dæmon washes over black as pitch and headbutts it hard enough to break bones and rend flesh and send it flying through the water miles away. The resulting wave of water crashes over them, tries to drag them under, and they gasp and splutter and swallow seawater and nearly drown. The shark circles around them, unnatural shiny-black faded to normal gray sharkskin, a silent protector, until Shanks cuts through the water, lethal and swift as his dæmon, scoops them out of the surf and tows them back to shore.

(_Tasted_ _terrible_, the shark murmurs, low and disgusted, half-submerged in the shallows as Shanks finally drags them up onto the sand. Her voice is feminine and incongruous, coming from a mouthful of serrated teeth, and Ilirya leaps out of the seafoam and scuttles over broken seashells as a crab, hard carapace slick and redder than blood as he settles against her drenched shirt over her chest and she heaves and gasps for air. Ran is plastered to Luffy, gasping and shivering, the tiny form of a baby sea turtle over his heart. They're both in shock, curled together on the sand, and Shanks is running inland, shouting for Makino-)

But he has both arms.

* * *

She breaks her promise about the stealing. That's probably why Garp roars back into Luffy's life just when things are getting good, back to normal. Karma collecting its due for oathbreakers.

Shanks is gone, she and Luffy are left behind (she only smiled all the times when Luffy begged Shanks to take the both of them with his crew out to sea, because she knew the answer, knew their time would come regardless). Luffy has a new dream and a hat and she has a necklace.

The necklace is the only thing entirely unexpected.

It's on a golden chain, fine links prettier than any jewelry she's ever seen on the island before (even in the nice stalls like Mrs. Horton has with her scarab dæmon, glittery-shiny and bright). Hanging off the long chain is a pendant, a deep red gem cut like a fat teardrop the size of her whole thumb, and it has a little cap of gold with a loop on it that the chain is threaded through. She tucks it into her shirt to hide it until she can get home and put it away safe in Makino's meagre jewelry box, stares up at Shanks' scarred and handsome smiling face in amazement (the stone matches his hair, doesn't it?), realizes sagely why Makino always faintly flushes when Shanks compliments her cooking, her hair, her bar.

He is her first crush.

Ilirya is back to a squirrel monkey on her shoulder, reaching unashamed into her shirt to pull the gem out with deft fingers to _ooh_ and _ah_ over it. She lets him do what he will, and Shanks smiles fondly, indulgently. She thinks of his dæmon, his tiger shark, surely still circling in the water, waiting for him to return to sea.

(He will never be still.)

He ruffles her hair, tells her she'll grow into it, and leaves her baffled next to a crying Luffy. She was tearing up, before, but now she's too awed to cry.

* * *

Garp drags Luffy away. It's different this time.

They're out in the forest when he finds them, and a split second into the conversation, if you could call it that, after Luffy shouts his kingly intent to the world (tactfully done, Luffy), things go different than they usually do. Garp's face purples with a fear that quickly morphs into focused, targeted anger. He punches Luffy over the head (to Ran's screech, Ilirya and her yelps of alarm), and tucks Luffy effortlessly under one arm while he's still dazed.

"Your time in Foosha has come to an end," he says, clear as anything. "I can't have those pirates putting ideas in your head."

Her heart plummets into her toes.

His St. Bernard dæmon (familiar, now, from countless visits, made alien by fear) silently executes Garp's wordless commands, and the great white and brown and roan jowly behemoth clutches a hissing and spitting Ran in her massive jaws, deceptively gentle. No matter how much Ran struggles, she can't escape (not in her limited, juvenile forms, can't get big enough), _won't_ escape, maybe, won't turn into an elephant and stomp around because she knows there'd be consequences for Luffy. She goes limp.

Garp doesn't even notice her.

Not until she's run after him, screaming, and launched herself at the most vulnerable point she can reach: namely, the back of his knee.

He plucks her out of the air neatly, after she's scrabbled at his leg for maybe a minute, clinging and sobbing in panic. He notices her like one would notice an ant crawling over their skin: faintly surprising, but familiar, not altogether alarming. He grabs her by the collar, tucks her under the other massive arm, and keeps going.

It's suffocating. Nothing she, Luffy, Ran, or Ilirya do works, and no wiggling will help her escape from this prison of hard muscle. Luffy clings to trees, stretches and struggles, but nothing works at all. It's like trying to fight a mountain. She, meanwhile, can barely even struggle: she has no fruit, nothing but scant endurance and maybe flexibility, from wriggling into hiding places and sprinting through the market and the forest, and none of it does her any good and she can't move and-

(Ilirya is a tiny garden snake tucked into her shirt. He's not a coward, but he knows when fighting's utterly useless.)

An eternity later, Garp dumps them both on the dusty earth, and Luffy clings to Ran (reunited) while the two humans cling to each other, disoriented and a little afraid, though they'd never admit it. The curly-haired woman that answers the door is familiar - _Dadan_, her brain whispers - and she's given little-to-no choice as she agrees to take Luffy. To take Luffy _away_.

_No_, she whispers quietly, voice raw, and nobody but Luffy hears. He clings tighter.

What can they do? All Luffy's things are in his drawer at the bar, his extra sets of clothes, and all he has right now is his hat and the shirt on his back, it's not enough-

(_Just relax, dear,_ the St. Bernard whispers to them, low and feminine, and it's impossible to tell who she's talking to. For appearances, she'll believe it's Ran.)

She hears _can't handle him,_ and _my grandson_ through the buzz in her head, but she tunes it out. She's already heard it before. Echoing.

"What about the other brat?" Dadan shouts anxiously as Garp strides away, muttering to himself. She catches snippets of _pirate?_ and _absolutely not_ and _who the hell put those hogwash ideas in his head_ before Garp whirls and peers at Dadan's face like he's trying to solve a puzzle.

It clears. "Ah, the girl?" He shrugs. "She's Makino's brat. Keep her here until Makino comes and gets her."

"_What?_" Dadan's voice is shrill. "Nobody can know we're here! We're _mountain bandits_, we-"

But Garp is already gone.

* * *

They don't actually meet Ace until nighttime.

If it helps, the overwhelming panic made her forget he even existed. Just for a few hours, mind you.

A black-haired boy (clearly taller, still scrawny-limbed with youth but definitely older than them) drags in the body of a bear. One of the bears they usually _run_ from, a huge hulking beast with sharp claws and teeth and killer speed. He drags it in like the fresh catch of the day.

An ocelot kitten slinks around his ankles, spotted and speckled like his cheeks (those are freckles, right, she's not dreaming?) as he hauls it off the ground and over his shoulders, heaves it to the table with a raucous thump and a clatter of plates and cups and cutlery.

Dadan and the other bandits go busy like a stepped-on antpile, skinning the thing and cooking it up for dinner. Her mouth waters, and she knows Luffy must be starving by now (they didn't have lunch, didn't go back to the bar, and Makino must be so worried she's sick with it), but all they get is rice. Ilirya's still a garden snake curled up in her shirt and Ran's a mouse, squeaky-small and soft like Paloma, curled up on Luffy's shoulder, and they are so far out of their depth it's not even funny. She's eight, he's seven and Garp kidnapped them. He's not taking them back home, not teaching them something new, he _stole_ them-

That, and she hasn't been this hungry since a lifetime ago. She hates it. Even more, now.

The bandits ignore them and Ace (though she technically isn't supposed to know it's his name, yet) is stonily silent as he eats. He feeds his dæmon scraps of cooked bear under the table, seemingly for the sheer pleasure of it (dæmons can eat, but they don't need fuel, so it's just for the taste). She doesn't hate him for it, but feeding his dæmon while they go hungry is cruel. She thinks he means that.

Dadan smacks Luffy's hand away, hard, when he reaches for the meat. Ran shifts to a kitten on his shoulder and hisses, but Dadan's dæmon (a hyena, spotted and snarling, hulkingly big) makes a horrifying noise and Luffy shrinks back.

Dadan turns sharp eyes to her, too, but she doesn't bother to try. She keeps her eyes down (rage funneled into the worn wood of the table) and eats her rice. (Shovels a quarter of it into Luffy's bowl. He's hungrier than her.)

Ace leaves. The bandits clean up and ignore them.

They sleep.

* * *

Makino doesn't come.

What if Makino thinks they're on just another trip? She would come if she knew, she knows, Makino would never abandon them, it's just that they're stuck in the _middle of damn nowhere _eating_ rice for every meal-_

Ace ignores them. His dæmon is always silent, and he ignores her, too, face closed off and mean. He doesn't kick her, or anything, gives her morsels of food and isn't cruel, but he doesn't talk to her and she never tries to talk to him. He (this boy who kills bears and lions and ignores his dæmon) scares her. Luffy is intrigued.

"We should be friends with him," Luffy whispers to her, and Ace can definitely hear them from three feet away on the other side of the rickety wooden dinner table. She sighs slow, out through her nose, for uncountable reasons, and she's staring warily at Ace for his reaction like she'd keep an eye on a predator so she notices the split second his eyes flit to hers, black and fathomless and angry.

"Luffy," she says, tugging on his sleeve, but Luffy's still chattering on and doesn't notice when Ace rises ominously to his feet. "Luffy," she says again, more insistently, but when Ace leaps across the table to tackle Luffy out of his chair, she yanks on his arm hard and tows him by his hand to yank him out the door and into the dark, frightening night.

* * *

Days pass. Makino doesn't come.

Her heart hurts and Ilirya hurts, too. She's so thankful Luffy has her, has _someone_, but truthfully, selfishly, she's more thankful she has Luffy than anything else.

She can't bear the thought of being alone again.

She doesn't know what Makino thinks. Did Garp tell her, before he left? If they were friends before this, she meanly thinks, she hopes Makino hates him after this. For trying to steal Luffy away.

Luffy's not going anywhere. _Or_, she amends, _if he's going anywhere, I'm going too._

The forested mountainside is dangerous and they are weak. Garp carried them so far, and Luffy's seven and she's eight and they both have terrible senses of direction. Not atrociously bad, but not good enough to make their way back to the village through a forest full of aggressive predators. Not when they're so young. So weak.

They'll grow. They'll get stronger. They'll get back to Makino.

She gives up hoping Makino will come for them, and it breaks something small and fragile in her. She focuses on Luffy instead.

* * *

Luffy misses Makino, too. It takes him three days to realize it.

He misses the stories, and the bandaging (the time and care made them feel better more than anything), and the warm bar with their beds and the _food_. He misses Makino.

(Her tentative like for Garp curdles, sours, turns dark and angry and betrayed, because how could he _do_ this-)

Luffy decides that even with Ace here, he doesn't like Dadan and he doesn't like just rice and he doesn't like most everything else. He wants to go home, to Makino, and maybe bring Ace with them. Does she think Makino would be okay with that?

She avoids answering his question and tells him that she wants to go home, too.

* * *

She doesn't like Ace.

Ilirya whispers for her to _be kind_, but even he doesn't sound convinced. He only has her echoes, anyways.

It's odd and uncomfortable because dæmons are supposed to know _everything_, there since birth, but she knows more. The memories echo over to him, blurry, and when he says things only she knows she doesn't ask why. She knows why.

She knows his past and his self-hatred and that he's lost, just a child, but his cruelty affects her so much that it's hard to remember. All her memories are blurry, anyways, the Now is so much more sharp and vibrant. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

Ace's dæmon doesn't talk, not to him, not to anyone, and that's telling. It makes her clutch Ilirya tighter as they curl up on the floor, Luffy plastered to her back and snoring softly and Ran as a meerkat curled up 'round his neck. Nights aren't too cold, yet, but they'll only get colder, and they only have one blanket because her stay is supposed to be temporary.

It will be. It will be.

* * *

Luffy wants to tag along with Ace because he's taller and stronger.

She can't think of a good argument against it.

She faintly remembers falling off a cliff. "We'll have to be careful," she tells him, but she doesn't say no. The absence of a no is a yes to Luffy, so he drags her by the hand after the retreating figure of Ace.

They follow him into the trees.

* * *

He utterly ignores them. They watch him hunt.

He takes down wild game with his dæmon and his fists, and he can knock over trees. _Trees_. What the hell is with that? No normal child can knock down trees.

Luffy dodges them like it's a game, so she does the same, heartbeat rabbiting in her throat. None of them kill her, at least.

She wonders if it's in Ace's blood, if he comes to it naturally, or if he worked to make it happen. She thinks it's a mixture of both, because in the room they all reluctantly share (well, her and Ace reluctantly, Luffy enthusiastically), he usually climbs through the window in the dark of night, when Luffy is already asleep and she supposedly is. He's always sweating and tired, hair matted with dirt and unrecognizable things, disheveled, and she thinks he's probably been exercising. It's not normal.

_No normal child can stretch like rubber, either_, she reminds herself, teeth gritted as she sprints, dodging falling boulders with deft reflexes, hyperaware and attention honed by years of running from the things in the forest and petty thievery. _Luffy's no less of a person for it. Don't get twisted._

The only problem is that things that don't phase Luffy - like, say, all blunt force trauma - are possibly lethal to her. Even their past experience of fighting monkeys can't compare to _this_, because what's a (teeth-rattling) monkey's punch to the face versus nature's full weapon cache? It's unsupervised wild game on a much more massive scale, faster and stronger and far, far more hungry. Huge crocodiles and buzzards with knifelike beaks are simply outside their weight class, too big and too dangerous to be safe. They scrape close to death - her more than Luffy - and Luffy takes those hits for her, grinning and saying _it's alright, it doesn't hurt me at all_ and it doesn't matter if that's truth or lie, she needs to get stronger so she can train him out of that stupid, dangerous habit. Yanking him out of his own trouble doesn't nearly make up for it, and letting him get pushed and pulled around by creatures trying to kill him is more than her heart can bear. It doesn't matter if he saves her life with it (and Ran saves Ilirya's) more than once: it can't continue.

Something needs to change.

* * *

Luffy punches a tree until his fists get bloody and Ran doesn't stop him. Because they're both idiots.

She's out scrounging for small game with Ilirya, to see if she can surprise Luffy with something small (Dadan says she'll cook whatever they find but 'til they bring back meat all they get is rice), anything being better than nothing. She comes back to the shack at sunset, pleased and tired with a dead pheasant in hand and Luffy is at the tree line crying through the pain as his fists hit the bark over and over again.

In that moment, that's the most she's ever hated Ace.

* * *

A month passes.

Ace leads them into deadly situations 'round mid afternoon of every day, as if he can tolerate them up until then but when two-o'clock hits, it's _agh, gotta get these kids off my back, their inadequacies are finally pissing me off and it's pushing me past the breaking point._

Or something like that.

It's the two of them getting out of those incidents that eats up (no pun intended) the rest of their daylight until they come staggering back to the bandit's house. They always get out of it (their experience with the monkeys saves their lives, and never before has thankfulness and hate warred so fiercely within her), because Luffy's made of rubber and they have Ilirya and Ran and each other, but still. Still.

It's like all the times Garp whisked Luffy away and she trailed after, except now there's nothing protecting them and no place to go home to and nobody to rely on (Makino) except each other. The subtly pervasive feeling of fear is crushing, because it's not a few days, this time, it's forever, until they get stronger. Forever.

She tries not to imagine what Makino must think.

Luffy's hands are healed, faintly scarred over in discolored, crisscrossing silver from the knobs on the back of his hands up to his first knuckle. She has her own share of small scars from close shaves (is that what she's calling near-death experiences, now?), too, but they're motivated by sheer hunger and through strength and speed paid for with sweat and blood they can both catch small game, now, birds and pheasant with the help of their dæmons. It's not bears but it's better than nothing.

They run and run and run and they eat like black holes. It's not enough. They're always hungry, and the only stories they have are the ones she makes up as they go, fantastical and dangerous and beautiful like the adventures they'll have. If they're tinged with the past, Luffy certainly doesn't notice. Not when there's dragons and princesses and witches and scythes and swords and ninjas and _pirates_.

(She only hesitates once, when she's telling the tale of Cynderella and realizes she forgot about her dæmon. All of these stories lack dæmons, and she's been putting them in instinctually, without a hitch, without even noticing-)

He likes the pirate ones best of all.

They get battered and scraped and bruised but they always heal, almost too fast sometimes. She attributes it to this fantastical world, this world where dæmons exist and the sea is vast and fathomless. How else could she explain her and Luffy learning to catch lightning-fast birds with their bare hands and their dæmons and their wits?

(They're getting stronger by inches, and she doesn't know if it's worth it.)

Luffy is always careful to protect his hat, the golden straw and frayed red ribbon 'round the brim. She quietly agrees with him, thinks it's pretty, too, and wishes she had her necklace.

Just another reason to get home.

"Come on," she whispers as Luffy stumbles, clasping his hand and yanking him over a lunging snake patterned in zigzagging teal and red. He regains balance, trots on, and behind him, she hears hissing and spitting as Ran shifts to a cobra and Ilirya to a viper and they kill it. Their dæmons catch up with them seconds later, but Ace has started to run (his dæmon a swift-footed doe, still dappled young with fawnspots, leaping through the underbrush) and this is the place where they always lose his trail. They both break into a sprint.

* * *

"Can we just take a day?" she says, pleading. She tugs gently on Luffy's fingers, and she can remember blood dripping down them, not too long ago, the cost of pushing too far too fast. The sight of her own trembling hands wrapping broken skin in stolen bandages echoes through her mind, a real memory, this time. Whatever real even means.

She doesn't call it a break.

They find a clearing full of clover in the forest, deeper up the mountain and in one of the places Ace never leads them. Ilirya and Ran shift to foals, Ilirya a paint with chestnut and white (echoes of a favorite she can't remember) and Ran buckskin patterned like a siamese cat, creamy gold with black points. They romp and roll around and graze on sweet clover, and all the while she and Luffy talk. They talk about what they want, how they're going to do it.

They meander through everything before they get to the meat of it. They talk like they haven't got a chance to, and it's times like these that reinforce what she already knows: she loves Luffy, but more than that, she actually likes him. It makes her happy, spending time with him and talking, mostly listening but it's worth it because when she does talk, Luffy always listens and always laughs when she tries for him. He's a real friend.

They settle on a plan of action.

Eventually: home. First? Stronger.

They need to keep up with Ace. They need to get to where he's going.

* * *

He's so _fast_. That's the problem.

They can't fix the fact that he has longer legs, but they can try to work around it. Get faster so they can keep up. That way, when they get taller (_and we will!_ Luffy promises), they'll be even faster than him.

(She smothers her giggles in her palm as Luffy fistpumps, grinning, and with him there's always moments like these. Sunspots in the dark.)

They practice sprints. She vaguely hopes this won't permanently stunt their growth.

They get faster, better. Returning to a warm bed in the village every night is a far cry from what they have now, and it makes them sharper. Stronger, too, because she has them do push-ups and sit-ups and whatever else she can think of, back at the clover meadow, because there's no market, now, no kind people who look away when they pilfer kebabs and sugar spun treats and sweet watermelon from the market stalls. All there is are the bandits and Ace and the unforgiving forest, teeming with plants and beasts and hungry things. Hostile. What else can they do but claw their way towards strength?

Luffy takes to it too well, and while he'll never be a behemoth (built too small for that), as soon as he can get enough food, she knows he'll put on muscle enough to stop being skin and bones and she'll be able to stop worrying about him. For her own part, she's similarly half-starved (and it's definitely inhibiting her strength) but there's not much she can do about it.

(She wonders if Ace wonders why they've stopped following him.

She catches him looking at her over the dinner table, once, peering 'round a platter heaped high with meat they can't touch, but he frowns so fiercely at her when she catches him that she looks away immediately, reflexive like jerking her hands off a hot stove. When she looks back, he's rising out of his chair, a fistful of turkey legs in hand, and in three seconds flat he's out the door.)

It's stupid how much stronger they get after that. How much stronger they keep getting.

She hates Garp for it, but she wonders how strong they really would have gotten back amid the windmills and market stalls and a mother's love. To her, love is a strength, but… the environment here is cruel in a way Makino could never be. There's a sharp delineation between the two, and it cuts her in two, makes her quieter in a way she thought she left behind. Luffy coaxes her out of it, easier than breathing because he _knows_ her, but it's not nothing.

_It's like these bodies were designed to get strong,_ she thinks darkly, punching the trunk of a tree with all her strength like the echo of a bad memory.

Except it's her and Luffy punching it together, this time. The branches shake.

"Back to sprints," she pants out (can't let their hands get hurt, can't punch trees too often), and Luffy wheezes as he breaks into a wobbly run.

She keeps up. As long as she keeps up with him, she'll be fine. Luffy can do anything.

* * *

A month and a half later, Luffy's patience runs out and she lets the twentieth iteration of his pleading convince her that they're ready.

She tells him not to expect they'll succeed on the first try, no matter how much stronger they are (with the short baseline they started from, even leaps and bounds don't put them too high up), because she doesn't want him to be disappointed if they fail. In actuality, she's reminding herself.

She doesn't think of Makino much, anymore, because there's not much beautiful and kind out here. The only beauty on this mountain is harsh, rising suns and warning colors from a viper and roaring torrents of water pouring from rock, wild things that stay untamed and beautiful, and Makino is beautiful too but she's not like that. Living in an unkind world with nobody to care for her is sobering, and it makes the inarticulated vestiges of childhood that surround her like a cloak all the more apparent, thrown into sharp relief as if backlit by the flames. She needs to take responsibility, get them through this. She needs to be strong, slice bits of herself off until she's the right shape to survive this world. To keep up.

It's in vain, but she hopes Luffy never changes.

(She knows he already is.)

* * *

Ace looks very surprised the day they trail after him into the trees.

He actually looks _back_ at them, dæmon a flying fox in russet and black clinging to the back of his shirt. She peeps over his shoulder, looking adorable, and not for the first time she wonders if Ace's dæmon has a name.

He certainly knows theirs, at least. He just chooses not to use them. She wonders if it's the same.

"ACE!" Luffy shouts out, happy as a clam, waving cheerfully, enthusiastic to the last. She doesn't move, just stares Ace down, eyes narrowed, so when Luffy yanks one of her hands into the air and jerks it around spastically by the wrist in a parody of a wave, she almost jumps out of her skin.

"Luffy," she hisses, and her eyes flick back to Ace so she catches Ace's laugh, a stunted, quiet thing, his face painted entirely different by even halfhearted happiness. She stares, and fast as it's come, it fades and is overcome by rage and self-loathing as he whirls around and sprints.

Luffy yelps in alarm and drops her hand, running after him. She remembers that Ace is a child.

* * *

They don't keep up with him the first day, but they do on the fourth.

They get all the way over the crest of the mountain, two hours of one-part steep incline and a two-parts joint-destroying downward slope, both studded with thick roots latticing the forest floor and sturdy, face-level plants that whip and tear at their skin and clothes. They make it out, but it's been two hours straight of running and they're scratched up and half-dead, Ilirya and Ran long-shifted to insects clinging to their collars as they pant and gasp. Ran is a damselfly and Ilirya a cicada, but Ace is still just barely visible up ahead, doe leaping and undefeated by the forest. His dæmon shifts to a tawny rat as soon as they break through the treeline, though, scurries up his leg to perch on his shoulder. He's a measure away and he walks purposefully, never once looking behind himself, and they'll have to hurry if they want to keep up with him, but-

She can see why. The reason for his dæmon's transformation.

This place is the stench and refuse of a trashcan multiplied by a billion. It's a city made of trash and grime, billowing smoke and oozing liquid filth like an open sore. People root around in it like stray dogs, searching for food and treasure, perpetuating uncleanliness and scrounging for scraps, doing the best they can. It's a garbage dump, the biggest garbage dump she's ever seen, in this life or the last.

It's truly disgusting.

Even Luffy pauses. "This is really gross," he whispers, still panting for breath, and her eyes flick down to his sandals. How is he gonna keep clean in those?

She hopes Makino won't get too mad at her for ruining her boots when she gets home. "You're taking a bath as soon as we get back," she tells him, for lack of anything better to say.

He doesn't even argue.

* * *

"HEY, AC-! MMGHFGH-"

She slaps a hand over Luffy's mouth and yanks him back 'round the trunk of the massive tree and hopefully out of sight, doesn't quite catch the whole shout before it leaves his throat. A cold panic breaks over her because Ace is up there, up there with another silhouette and alarm bells are ringing in her head, danger, danger, they shouldn't be here-

"Don't," she hisses, but it's too late.

The two figures drop down, skidding down the moss-slick tree trunk and guiding their descent by way of vines with the ease of well-worn practice. Alarm floods through her and if she had hackles, they'd be raising, because she and Luffy need to leave right now.

"Luffy, let's go," she manages, trying to drag him back round the trunk and towards the forest. Away. Safe.

"No way!" he snaps back, yanking her back to the daylight, and Ran is a songbird on his shoulder, feathers puffed like a dandelion. "We came all this way, we trained, we can't give up now-"

Faster than she can move, something hits her head, hard, and the world goes dark.

—

She wakes to a throbbing, pounding headache.

"-I told you, she's not like me! Getting hit with pipes and rocks and trees _hurts_ her! So don't do it again!"

Is that Luffy? He sounds… not-Luffyish. Too serious. Voices that squeaky aren't meant to sound that way.

"S'alright," she slurs, feels Ilirya - still a cicada - on her shirtcollar, brushing against her skin, and relaxes.

She's leaning against something warm. Something with give, almost… rubbery.

"Luffy?" she tries. Attempts to open her eyes. Fails. They're too heavy.

There's arms wrapped around her waist like a seatbelt, propping her up on almost-definitely-Luffy. It's confining, but probably for the best. Her head is swimming, missing moments like a skipping record, and she can't think, let alone keep herself sitting up straight.

(It feels like she's blinked extra-long, head fuzzy like she missed a step on the stairs, and she hopes only a few seconds have passed. She doesn't want to miss anything by losing consciousness.)

"Who the hell are you?" It's a voice she doesn't recognize, not the barely-restrained stormcloud of Ace or the bubbly sunshine of Luffy's. It's that other figure, voice similarly high-pitched (young), oddly cultured under the rough, learned affectations. It's-

"Come on, Sabo, it doesn't matter." Contempt. Ace. "I told you they were following me around for a while. I thought they gave up, but I guess that was too good to be true…"

"Oh." Realization. "So that's Luffy, huh? And the girl. still want to know her name. Just 'cause you said it's not important doesn't mean I don't want to know…" The voice trails off, and she hears shuffling. Someone stepping closer, maybe. "She's just like you said."

"Come on, Sabo-"

She mumbles something instinct in an attempt to speak, feels Luffy's rubber arms wind around her tighter and pull her closer to his bony chest. If only she could think, could talk, she'd fix this, get her and Luffy away from here and to safety-

More shuffling. "Ace, if they made it here, they're not total weaklings like you said. They could be a threat-"

"Do they look like threats? I knocked her out in one hit." Derision.

"Sure, the girl, maybe, but what about the boy?"

Luffy, she tries to say, slurs. It comes out like _luhhhfyy_, mumbled like marbles in her mouth, but her head is starting to just barely resolidify out of its gaseous, dissipated form.

"Are you okay?" Luffy's whisper is hurried, more worry than she's ever heard lacing through it, voice serious and low, and she can feel Ran's fur just barely brushing her bare arm. She shudders.

"He's nothing." Ace. "A little stronger, maybe, but we could take him easy. Hands tied behind our backs, even."

"Are you sure, Ace? The girl-"

"The girl is worthless. Can't even keep up with him-"

She can almost hear it when Luffy's frustration boils over, explodes, cracks like an egg. Ran snarls a warning from beside her, but she feels safe, dreamy as if she's asleep. Luffy's arms clutch her tighter and he takes a deep breath, opens his mouth-

He yells.

"Her name isn't 'GIRL,' it's VALENTINE!" It's half-yell and half-scream, all frustration. She hears Sabo and Ace go silent.

Her brain, whirring like a rundown stopwatch, completely pauses.

"So shut UP!" Luffy snaps. Actually snaps. Luffy. "I know it must've been an accident, so I'm not too mad, but you hurt her! She's my most important person, you know, but she's not made of rubber, so she breaks-"

"Don't tell me to shut up," Ace snarls, deadly menacing with intent, and she can hear his dæmon snarl with him in chorus.

"Valentine, huh?" Sabo again.

"She BREAKS! So don't hit her in the head, hit me as many times as you want, I don't care, I don't even feel it!"

"Stop that," she - Valentine - whispers weakly, struggling to open her eyes, to lean up. "Don't- no, don't-"

"I don't care," says Ace, the blurry figure of him with pipe slung over his shoulder coming into view through cracked eyelids, stepping frighteningly forward and close. Luffy tenses. "I really, really don't care. The only thing that matters is the fact that you know where our treasure is, now."

"Treasure?" Luffy. "Like pirate treasure?"

"Ace, you idiot," hisses Sabo, "they didn't see anything."

"They know the tree," Ace responds darkly, and Valentine's vision is returning now, the two figures in front of her coming into focus. There's Ace - dark haired, freckled, belligerent, pipe at his side and fierce frown on his face like always, his dæmon a juvenile she-lion at his side - and there's Sabo.

Sabo is blue. Blue and white like seafoam. Even his dæmon matches, a snow-white hare with black-tipped ears like Sabo's hat, perched on one of his boots. Sabo shifts as he talks, impassioned, and she hops off, hides behind his leg, twitching nose sticking out from behind.

It reminds her painfully, sharply, of how she was before Luffy. Her heart throbs in tandem with her head.

"-so we should kill them," finishes Ace.

Ilirya shifts _big_, leathery skin and sharp teeth and beady eyes 'til he's an alligator, sliding off her belly before he's full-shifted so he doesn't crush her. Before he can even snap his jaws, Ace and Sabo leap back lightning-fast, their own dæmons going sharp-toothed and snarling beside them. Luffy hauls her to her feet by his armhold round her torso (ow) and Ran is an eagle, a shrill cry building in her throat as she stands sentinel by Ilirya on the ground, feathers puffed and eyes sharp.

Alligator and eagle vs. two wolverines. A united front. They can't win this.

"You won't kill us," Valentine rasps, shoving none-too-gently out of Luffy's arms. Her head murmurs a sharp complaint and she ignores it, standing straight as she can, trying not to sway.

This won't have much impact if she can't stand on her own.

"We can," says Ace, eyes narrowed, and she knows it's true. Sabo looks nervous.

"I didn't say you can't," she says, soft voice still raspy from her blow to the head, and this is the most she's ever spoken to anyone other than Luffy or Makino and she's negotiating her own death. Big surprise. "I said you won't. There's a difference."

Sabo's pipe clinks on the ground as he lets it drop. God, he looks so _young_, front tooth missing and exposed skin grungy, too thin from living in a place like this. Makino would take him in in a heartbeat. Her mom has a kind heart.

Her thoughts skip like a record track and her own heart clenches in her chest for reasons she can't name. She misses Makino like burning in that moment, like fire, and she _will_ get home, she _will_ get her and Luffy to safety, back to Makino, and she _won't_ let anyone die here, least of all herself. Not now.

"...I don't really want to kill them, Ace," Sabo mutters, voice pitched low like he doesn't want to be heard, nudging Ace's side with an elbow. His dæmon's hackles are going down, subsiding, mirroring him. "Can't we just beat them up and make them promise not to tell?"

She appreciates the less lethal approach, but she's not sure she could take much more beating up. "Why would we tell anyone?" Her voice is unfamiliar, matter-of-fact, foreign sounding in air not occupied by just her and Luffy, but she pushes through the strangeness, fights down the feeling of _isn't this wrong?_ that still crops up every once in a while. By now, ignoring it is old hat. "There's nobody to trust here."

The grain of truth in that makes Ace's eyes narrow consideringly. "If there's nobody to trust, and you two are weaklings…" He trails off derisively. "Then why are you here?"

Behind the hostility is a real question. One that he's probably been asking himself for a while, now, over crowded dinner tables and running through copses of trees and huddled underneath a thin blanket, silent dæmon and expression like old hate, old hurt. (_Why?_)

(_Why do they keep following me?_)

Isn't that the million-beri question.

"We're here 'cause of you, Ace," Luffy pipes up, and he's been oddly quiet 'til now. Valentine glances to the side and her eyes widen at the sheen of tears, the wobbling lower lip. "We wanna be friends. I didn't think you had anyone else, and…"

"I don't want your pity," Ace barks, dæmon snarling at his ankles. The tensions rises sharp, potential for violence and hurt. Ilirya's claws scrape against the ground, thick tail lashing to the side, but Ran doesn't move. She chirps, soft, an odd expression coming from such a big bird. Valentine breathes out slow, through her nose.

"It's not like that," Luffy says, eyes big and beseeching. He steps forward, past her, past Ilirya 'til he's barely a foot away from them. Ace goes tense, but his dæmon is silent, and Sabo's silent, too, looking at Luffy, staring like he dares to hope.

She stays fiercely quiet. Luffy has the stage, now.

"We wanna be friends," Luffy says simply. Ran shifts to a songbird again and flits to his shoulder, and Luffy reaches for her absently, fingers stroking over her feathers. "We don't want your treasure. It's so much more fun with friends, isn't it? Before I came here, I… I mean, I didn't have anyone." Alone. The word underlines every syllable, bleeding through clean like silver. _Alone_.

She feels it too. That's why they have to live.

Do Ace and Sabo feel it, too? Is that why they have each other?

(She already knows the answer to that.)

"You have me," Valentine rasps, and Luffy's (and Sabo's and Ace's) heads whip to look at her, a grin spreading immediate and natural across Luffy's face, blooming like a sunflower. Her hand is rising halfheartedly to reach out, fingers twitching. She wants to pull him back, but of course she won't. She needs to let him do this.

"Won't it be more fun with them, too?" He beseeches, and of course Sabo is included in this dream team, now, too.

She gives herself a full second to consider. Lets her hand drop.

"Yeah," she says, honest, sees Sabo's and Ace's eyes widening in her peripheral, but she only has eyes for Luffy. "But they don't want to. We can't force them."

"We don't need you," says Ace, and she can't get a read on his tone but he sounds scared. Lost. Angry. "We don't need anyone."

_I don't need you. I don't need anyone._

"But wouldn't it be better together?" Luffy pleads, holding his hand out like an offering, a tightrope, a lifeline.

Ace looks at it like it's a live grenade. His eyes are wary, distant, but buried underneath everything is the faintest spark of-

_Yes_, Valentine thinks as she looks on at him, eyes flicking past the piles of trash and rising to the sky, endlessly blue. _Yes_.

—

**Notes:**

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I've loved writing it.

Also, I'm reuploading the chapters 'cause I've made a bunch of little edits (for quality). I've also been omitting the notes from the version, which I think is a big mistake, because all my little thoughts and comments are pretty important to include! I also love to talk with you guys and hear what you think, so hopefully the notes make this story a little more approachable. :,D

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy the story!


	2. Chapter 2: Gold

Her brain wants to skip to the good bit, but truth is, it's not that simple.

There's nothing to force them together, no threat, no ties. There's just Luffy, the strength of his conviction, his hope. _She _knows it's enough, that it always will be, but do Ace and Sabo?

Not just yet.

* * *

The journey back to Dadan's is awkward.

After a short (but fierce) whispered argument between Sabo and Ace (she catches snippets like _can't trust _and _weak _and _dead weight_), Ace magnanimously decides to let them be his and Sabo's servants.

Joy.

Luffy cheerfully vetoes servitude, Ace's hackles rise again, and they waste ten whole minutes arguing back and forth before Valentine pointedly murmurs _why can't we just stick together for now and see how it goes? _

Her head hurts.

(In for a penny, in for a pound, right?)

So. After some threats/warnings from Ace (_don't get in our way_), here they are. Sticking together. Seeing how it goes.

Awkward.

It feels like a half-measure at best, a consolation prize as a reward for Luffy's sheer _persistence, _and the discomfort in the air is so palpable she half-expects to be chewing on it when she takes her next breath. It's only because of Luffy's endless ability to _talk _(limited while running, but not entirely evaporated) that they're not running in utter silence (ignoring the usual sounds of the jungle, rustling leaves and birdcalls and the cries of slavering beasts). And it wouldn't be comfortable silence, like she and Luffy have while they run together, no.

Ilirya's a jay flying overhead, Ran a brownish cardinal (exactly why she's not red, Valentine explains to an awed Luffy a hundred sunsets ago, back in the village when the windmills spun and everything was-) and Ace's dæmon is back to a bounding deer, Sabo's something small and hidden in one of his pockets. (She seems shy, that one.)

Ace and Sabo aren't slowing down for them. They're just… tolerating their presence, which means Luffy's a barrel full of smiles and Valentine gets to make an active choice to forget why her head aches. Choose your battles.

It's a rocky start (_to something wonderful_, the future whispers).

* * *

Sabo moves in, like Ace accepting two more strays into their ragtag duo was all the excuse he needed to set up shop. Luffy is overjoyed.

Valentine is not.

Ace and Sabo sleep on one side of the room, Luffy edging their blanket ever closer to the older two (she accepts it wearily, sleeps on the side farther away). Ace looks at her knowingly, from time to time, and the lack of active hostility is odd enough that she's wary. He just seems… puzzled by her, now, fallout from their explosive confrontation fresh on his mind. He's probably wondering why she's going along with Luffy, to be honest, and he'd be right in thinking that everything is Luffy's idea. (He's got that right, at least.)

It's awkward and cramped and chafing, doesn't sit right. There's no _trust, _no camaraderie between the four of them, together but not _together. _It's Ace-and-Sabo plus Luffy-and-Valentine, two close duos in an uncomfortable alliance more than any sort of partnership Luffy imagined.

(In typical Luffy fashion, he talks and laughs and smiles more and _believes _and imagines that's going to fix the problem. She really, really doesn't think so.)

Sabo makes at least a passive effort, doesn't seem to hold onto wariness, but Ace's hesitation is holding the whole group in limbo.

It shows in how their dæmons interact. They go on the hunt, spend time together like a pack, but their souls are mismatched, separate. Ilirya sticks close to her, now, doesn't romp around and talk with Ran unless he forgets about Ace and Sabo and their dæmons. Valentine is quiet, and Ace and Sabo are off-kilter, Luffy filling up all the awkward gaps like pouring seawater into an endlessly emptying basin, stinging salt seeping into the cracks.

Their dæmons are silent, still. She doesn't even know their names.

* * *

At least they _eat, _now.

She and Luffy put on weight, strength increasing. Luffy's stomach doesn't growl, anymore, and he doesn't stare yearningly at things he can't reach for across the dinner table. Now it's her and Luffy and Sabo and Ace and Dadan and her cronies, way more people than the fragile table was originally built to handle, probably, and they get enough to fill their bellies. (It's not as good as Makino's cooking, obviously, but-) with so many people and dæmons in one room, dinnertime can't be awkward and quiet. It's loud and boisterous (filled with chatter and shouts, dæmons big and small, from the smallest frilled lizard to the one massive moose dæmon that can hardly fit its antlers through the doorway) and it's a little… warm.

Ace and Luffy fall into competitions on who can stuff their face the fastest, while Valentine can keep up roughly with Sabo (still entirely outside normal human standards, but less than insanity) and eat at a voracious (but still reasonable) rate. Dadan would despair, but they do all the hunting, so.

Ace and Luffy fall into a ghost of the dynamic she knows they'll grow into. It hurts her heart a bit, but for all she can be for him, she can't be his big brother, and in her heart of hearts, she knows she wouldn't want to be, anyways. Still, after spending so many years as Luffy's best/only/most important friend, part of her wants to hoard him jealously away, roam the village and the world with him forever, alone.

Obviously, she doesn't. A Luffy caged isn't a Luffy at all.

There's not much room to talk, at the table (everyone needs to fight for every morsel they can get), but she still somehow manages to strike up something cordial with Sabo, because Sabo is_ polite _(she doesn't think about where that comes from) and he's willing to talk about the beasts in the forest, the people in the Gray Terminal, the strangest and most impressive things he's ever seen, stolen, found. It isn't a lot - she pitches in stiltedly, quietly, bare trickles of speech - but it's something.

So, things get slightly easier. Not perfect, but easier. Tolerable.

(Every mushroom cloud has a silver lining.)

* * *

If nothing else, carrying the dead weight of countless beasts (utterly gargantuan and far beyond reasonable imagination) back to Dadan's is a good way to augment her strength training. Nothing like a couple thousand pounds to hammer her matchstick arms into shape.

(That last part is a joke. She already knows her strength is entirely disproportionate to her tiny limbs, explodes out of her in a way that'd be classified as superhuman if she hadn't seen infinitely more power from Ace and Sabo, scant years older than her and no more properly proportioned to their strength. Wherever this power is stored, it's not like the echoes of her past. It's put somewhere different; the soul, maybe, or a network of power she can't yet reach. She has absolutely, positively no idea.)

They can't fit the massive snake carcass through the door, so Dadan comes out, grumbling, with a pack of bandits armed to the teeth with knives to help skin and slice the whole thing (her underling's dæmons are an assortment of canines, jungle critters, and buzzing insects, relatively nonthreatening and therefore a non-crucial endeavor in which to spend her attention). Valentine catches movement out of the corner of her eye as Ace's dæmon - an ocelot for the occasion, a favored form of hers whenever they go out hunting, suited to forest travel and armed with blinding speed and mobility - trots up to Dadan's spotted hyena, tail held high and friendly, waving like a banner.

She's not as shocked as she should be when his dæmon butts its head gently against the hyena's foreleg, rubs against it, tail curling. The hyena makes a soft, guttural vocalization (a grunt?), ears flattened, teeth bared, and leans down.

(Valentine tenses, reflexive, but Ace isn't even looking. He's arguing with Sabo about who got the killing blow.)

When her eyes flick back, Dadan's dæmon is… talking?

The hyena is murmuring softly (gender of its voice indiscernible from where she stands, a low alto that she strains to hear), and even as she watches, it lashes out with a long, pink tongue, grooming Ace's ocelot's ear furiously, the swipes nearly taking up an entire half of the small cat's speckled and bewhiskered face. The hyena nudges the ocelot with its muzzle, pointed, and bares its teeth in a frustrated snarl as the dæmon blinks cutely, curls around the other dæmon's leg to trot between its ankles, tail high and ears pricked to attention.

She looks back to the massive carcass of the snake. Ace is harassing Dadan - ranting about how overcooked the meat was, last time, arms crossed and a heavy frown on his face, foot tapping as Sabo laughs, leaning against his pipe behind him - and Dadan is smoking like a chimney, cigarette hanging half out of her mouth as she yells, up to her wrists in snake's blood, ranting back at him so loud that Valentine can hardly believe he's getting a word in.

(Her reservations creak, refuse to be shifted, and hunker down like a cantankerous mule.)

* * *

Luffy spends the nights curled up against her side (in a rapidly shuffling repertoire of space-taking positions; seriously, how can one small boy take up twice as much space as she does?), which means he needs to be at _least _as clean as she is before bed.

If she's going to be treated like an oversized teddy bear, she's gonna have standards, dammit.

(He may be made of rubber, but with all the skin-contact Luffy welcomely inflicts on her, she can confirm that his skin mostly feels like regular skin. Completely hairless, though, and no pores, which makes contact feel oddly frictionless.)

He doesn't even moan and complain about baths, 'cause the frequency at which she shoves him into the bathroom and locks the door is _far _less often than how much Makino used to wrangle him into the tub. He gives token protest (_noooo, please, mercyyyy, _as he hammers on the door, wailing and bemoaning his fate) but eventually, he goes quiet and she can hear the sound of splashes and scrubbing.

She knows he gets lonely. Makino isn't there to be an adult and wash his hair and sing to him, and the most _she's _willing to do is get the hot water to the wide wooden bucket and fill it shallow enough that it's drown-proof. She knows that the room is big enough for Ace and Sabo, too (hears the sounds of yells and splashing water when they disappear and the bathroom door is locked and they come out clean), but they don't really talk to Luffy (Sabo the bare minimum, Ace not at all) beyond what's absolutely required to communicate the necessities. There's no way they'd share a bath with him.

At night, when they sleep, Ran and Ilirya snuggle together and doze, fluffy and usually matching for the occasion. (That, or they snuggle with their respective humans. It's a tossup, really.) Oddly, Sabo's dæmon and Ace's dæmon don't do the same; Sabo's is almost always nowhere to be seen (often shifted to smaller forms, shapes in which she can hide, so maybe she's in one of Sabo's pockets?), and Ace's dæmon sleeps entirely apart from the boys, a small shape in the darkness, alone. Ace and Sabo sleep near each other, sprawled out and limbs overlapping, but they don't cuddle (at least not like she and Luffy do).

It looks lonely.

* * *

Luffy tries. She doesn't think there's a universe in which he wouldn't.

He runs after Ace and Sabo with a tenacity only he can boast, hopeful and smiling and just a bit desperate, dragging her along by the hand behind him. He _knows _that they can all be friends, he just needs to help them _see- _

(Luffy cares about Ace and Sabo already. She tries to let that be enough.)

* * *

_(The future echoes to the past-)_

* * *

She nearly dies saving Sabo's life.

That changes the tempo a little bit.

Two weeks of tense, ceasefire-style hunting pass (with her and Luffy acting as distractions and annoyances to whatever megafauna they're assaulting more than actually doing any work). It's so much easier to hunt with four (note that when she says _easier _she means physically, not in relation to tolerating the underlying tension) that they take down bigger and bigger game, Ace and Sabo (and Luffy) getting boastful and excited and overconfident (even as the two former mostly ignore the latter). There's some rapport building, a natural result of running in a pack like this, but it's distracting and fragile, built around the outlier (her) and the brat (Luffy), imbalanced and tentative. They all get antsy, uncomfortable, careless. They make a mistake.

They kill a behemoth-size crocodile. Ace breaks its skull open like a rotten fruit (he and Sabo count finishing blows, something she's only caught wind of by overhearing their private whispered conversations, and she knows that this brings them one-thirty-two to one-thirty-four in Ace's favor), and blood blooms in the water, a particularly dangerous section of one of the many rivers that wind through the forest. They linger by the kill, Ace and Sabo arguing about the score as Luffy tries to cut in, and Valentine stands off to the side, sullen, Ilirya a pillbug hiding in her pocket. Her eyes flit aimlessly to the murky shallows-

Sabo's dæmon screams an alarm, and she doesn't have time to think before she lunges forward-

* * *

"You saved Sabo's life," Ace tells her later, long after she's done bleeding and shivering from the gash she's received in return for it, an exchange made in blood. The four crocodile carcasses they have now are too much, _way _too much, and the table's piled high with meat to feed an army. Nature's way of keeping score. "I won't forget that," Ace says, softer than she's ever heard him but no less full of steel. She's curled up in her and Luffy's blanket on the floor, stomach under her shirt wrapped tight with roll upon roll of bandages, and he's staring down at her, his _own _bandages plastering his arms and torso, spotted with blood.

Maybe he catches the look in her eyes, because he sits down on the wood beside her.

Not equal. But level.

Luffy brings her the extra meat, later, to where she's drifting in and out of consciousness (speaks volumes that there's any _extra _with Luffy and Ace under the same roof), and she's still thinking about what Ace said.

(Is this it?)

He doesn't break his promise.

Things slot into place. They aren't friends, but they aren't… basically, Ace is giving them a chance.

* * *

"You're weak," says Sabo bluntly, two weeks later, and his dæmon is a hare again, hopping by his ankles with ears and fluffy tail twitching. "Why are you _this _weak?"

"I'm _eight," _Valentine replies mulishly, finally back on the hunt proper after several restless days of bedrest and a bunch more of light duty spent doing non-strenuous training (well, floor-rest, but that's splitting hairs). She's got almost a week of hesitant banter with Sabo under her belt (he's warmed over considerably, even moreso after she saved his life), and while there's nothing much with Ace, still, she's not gonna force anything.

She's holding a pipe, awkward in her hands, a 'necessary tool' (not a gift) from Sabo and Ace, one for her and one for Luffy. Like theirs, it's longer than she is tall, and she has to make an effort not to let it drag behind her on the ground as she walks.

She's only used it for a week, and it's not as easy to swing as Ace and Sabo make it look. They twirl those things like _batons. _

"No, really, you're terrible," Sabo says, walking circles around her, poking at one of her skinny arms, and _argh. _

She lunges at him like she'd do with Luffy, hint of a playful smile stealing over her face as she fakes him out, and that makes his dæmon startle even as it surprises a giggle out of him, and he dances back out of her short reach. She hesitates _(did I go too far, did he misunderstand) _but finally, she's speaking a language he can interpret. "Too slow," he says, and his gap-toothed grin is blinding. Ilirya tweets from her shoulder, and Sabo's own dæmon scurries out of his pocket and to the top of his hat, shifting to a wren, trilling a friendly challenge.

"Stop messing around," Ace tosses over his shoulder, his dæmon a parakeet twittering in agreement. He looks… serious. No different from before.

Luffy is pleased as punch with his own pipe, giggling at something Ran is whispering in his ear.

"Lighten up," Sabo calls out to Ace, still grinning. "You're just jealous I'm faster than you. You could never get even _half _this speed."

"Oi!" Ace whirls around with a smothered smile on his face, and it transforms him, really. She doesn't think she'll ever get used to it.

"Every time we race-"

"You beat me in a race _one _time, and it's the buzzards that did it, the mountaintop circuit is completely rigged-"

Sabo rolls his eyes, hands behind his head, still grinning. "Oh, it's _rigged, _he says-"

Valentine laughs.

* * *

It's a lively, chiming thing, and it echoes through the forest and brings an entire herd of bison down on their heads. They (well, Ace and Sabo make all the finishing blows, but her and Luffy help) kill twenty five, enough not to need to hunt for a week.

It's the first time she's laughed in sixty seven days.

* * *

Things go quick after that.

Take hesitance out of the equation (Ace's _and _her own, she'll admit it) and they clickIt's blinding how well they work, how fast the dynamic slots into place, and-

Getting on with Sabo is the easiest (he's friendly, easy to read, willing to take a joke), but of all the things she learns about Ace, the most important is that if she puts herself out there, he'll almost inevitably follow.

For someone who's used to letting Luffy do all the putting-out-there, it's terrifying. But maybe it's necessary, as well.

She lets herself smile and laugh and have fun, like she would with Luffy, and… Ace and Sabo sort of… follow? No. They sway into tune with her, matching her example, and it makes her ashamed but she thinks that it really _was _her holding the whole group back. Now that she's on board, they get on like houses.

Ace _talks, _all sardonic wit and dumb one-liners and boyish confidence, and he's naturally a little quiet, too, a little reserved, when he's really comfortable, but it sits easier on his face, less like a raging river and more like a brisk stream when he stops being wary and lets himself just _be_. His default is a passive frown but he starts to smile around them, easier and easier as the days start to blur past, and he talks more and more, sharing thoughts and (rare) jokes and offhand comments. For him and Luffy, it's simple - he's the perfect overbearing big brother to Luffy's annoying-little-brother - but for the two of them, it's different, two wild animals who want to get along but have no idea of where to begin.

He starts with her by making little comments - _no, you want to hit like this, come in at a different angle - _and corrections, and over the weeks it evolves into subtly poking fun, testing out her responses, seeing what she'll do.

The first time she takes the bait, bites back _(come on, Ace, you're just correcting my balance 'cause you fell asleep in your soup and nearly drowned at the dinner table last night, _and there's playfulness bleeding through to her expression and he _stares) _he's astounded. It's amazing and he's _fascinating, _so fun (and extremely easy) to mess with, bravado that so easily flips to flushing, feathers-puffed embarrassment. Hilariously, he's easier to tease than Sabo (though she can get Sabo with it too, if she's quick witted and creative), and Luffy (immune to her teasing by now) gets his revenge on the both of them by giggling hysterically, trailing after her own dry comments with potshots of his own, wailing exaggeratedly and cackling as Ace and Sabo return fire, banter getting better and better, every day, and it's _fantastic. _The four of them _work_.

Their dæmons start to interact, flying and romping together like Ilirya and Ran used to (four instead of two, a welcome adjustment), and it's a dizzying moment of disconnect after a hunt several weeks in when she glances behind herself and spots Ilirya _carrying _everyone else's dæmons, an undersized tiger vibrantly striped in orange and black with three little birds nestled on his back.

Somehow, they've found something that lives and breathes, healthy and growing and flawed. They've found something good.

* * *

The pace at which they improve approaches horrifying.

Valentine makes her first proper killing blow _(not the little ones, they don't count!_) a scant week after their ragtag group starts actually getting along. It's a massive bird, one of the mean buzzards with the sharp beaks that roost close to the mountaintop, and she snaps its neck with a pipe swing.

Her small competition with Luffy (entirely proposed and enforced by Luffy himself) ends with a strangled squawk and little fanfare.

"Nice," says Ace, rebounding off his own kill, and Ilirya (a slender garden snake hiding in her shirt, sitting this one out) whispers a quiet _congratulations_. Ace stares at her appraisingly as she looks at the still body on the ground, and his own dæmon wings to his shoulder from where she'd been harassing another, wearing the shape of a keen-eyed falcon for the occasion.

"Good job!" Sabo calls out, still running at a bird of his own, Luffy approaching it from a different angle, and- Luffy is pouting. Of course.

"No fair!" Luffy smacks at the squawking bird furiously, Ran twittering and flying in dizzying circles around its head to distract, clearly contrasting Sabo's powerful, targeted strikes and his dæmon's sleek hawk-shape, raking at their target with powerful talons. "How come you killed one of the big ones first? We train the same!"

A plethora of reasons come to mind. Luffy and Sabo are targeting the scant rest of the flock, so - with a quick glance around the sparse, rocky landscape to double check - she lets out a sigh and leans on her pipe like a cane, watching Luffy fondly. "I'm older, Luffy." Which is true, but. Well, not the only reason. "And I don't have a devil fruit to worry about."

All of that is true, but more than anything else, Valentine fights a hell of a lot more vicious than he does. She looks at what works for Sabo and Ace - movement, swings, angles - and copies it. It makes her a better fighter. Not because she's stronger, or way faster, but because she's more skilled, more observant, more adaptable.

Luffy's gonna figure it all out eventually. All her efforts now - exercises, hunts - are simply to make sure she's the one who's not gonna be left in the dust.

Sabo kills the last one with a hard swing to the head, and Luffy's still frowning, breathing hard.

"Just keep it up, Luffy." She smiles. "And hey, if you really want to know why… you can ask, any time. I'm still improving, but I can definitely give you some pointers."

* * *

The name of Sabo's dæmon is Selhalia. He calls her Halia for short.

Sabo is kind and playful and conciliatory and _smart_, full of contradictions. He mediates between Luffy and Ace, but for reasons unknown he can't seem to resist trying to mess with her, and his sharp tongue is surprising as it is entertaining. He doesn't get mean with it, not like Ace can, but he doesn't like to stop until there's a clear winner.

That means that sometimes they keep slinging their pithy one-liners back and forth like a tennis match when they're beating down bears and tigers. (It's an art, really.)

Ace pretends he's exasperated with the both of them, but he's definitely entertained. Even better is when Ace or Luffy tries to cut in _(guys__, shut up and concentrate, _or _hey! what's that supposed to mean?) _and then her and Sabo pivot, focus their jabs on the interloper with glee as the boy in question backpedals. It's much more fun this way, she thinks, when she and Sabo can battle each other and then together in a heartbeat, and it keeps Ace and Luffy on their verbal toes, besides.

She'll always love messing with Ace (it's too easy), and Luffy's one of her favorite to have on her side (he can't do so well on his own but his follow-ups are the _best, _the perfect contrast of brash simplicity); still, when it comes to the verbal dance, Sabo's her favorite partner.

* * *

Ace and Sabo let Luffy into their spars when they get tired of his begging. By extension, Valentine is allowed in immediately after (to Luffy's outraged complaints of him doing all the work).

"I knew you could handle it, Luffy," she says generously, and watches him brighten up.

Too easy.

Honestly, she wasn't sure she _wanted _to hurry their participation along by contributing. She knows that she could probably make it happen in a couple days - a week, at most - with a mixture of cajoling, facts, and plain old asking (never mind the fact that she hasn't asked Ace or Sabo for a single thing, yet, and she doesn't want to break the habit). _However… _

She and Luffy aren't too good with their pipes yet. They can get a good kill in with some effort (alright, a lot of help on Luffy's part, and he hasn't yet made a killing blow), and their basic strength has improved (and is improving) at alarming speed (thanks to getting Ace's exercises out of him and their new massive-beast-hunting-lifestyle), but…

Well, to put it plainly, if they try to go one-on-one against Ace or Sabo, they'll get the shit kicked out of them. Or, more accurately, beat out of them.

Call her crazy if she's not looking forward to that. For Luffy _or _herself.

_Still, _she thinks to herself, staring down a grinning Sabo holding his pipe at the ready, _at least it'll be over quick. _

* * *

It is indeed over quick.

As is the next one, and the next one, and the next one. It's a good lesson for her pride, just in case she gets overconfident at any time in the future (which will be never).

To put it bluntly, Ace and Sabo are stronger, faster, and more skilled than them with their weapons. Their base strength is _insane, _and they deliver beatdowns with both speed and aplomb.

And smirks. They look pretty smirky, too, or at least that's what she _thinks, _staring up at Ace woozily from the dirt.

Valentine can throw a decent punch, kick passablyand hit things hard with her pipe. She can also jump crazy high and run fast and dodge _very _well, and she has fantastic reflexes, near-acrobat-level mobility, a good head on her shoulders. That's… about it, actually.

Luffy's much of the same, but his punching is made much worse by the fact that he always tries to use his devil fruit, which ends up fucking the punch to high hell as he trips over himself. He can run like a bat outta hell and dodge well (jump and leap as well as the rest of them, if a bit clumsier), but not much else, and his grasp on the pipe is basically a stopgap measure, because he doesn't like it much and she can't see him using it in the future. Call it a hunch.

When Valentine faces Ace or Sabo, she's on the run from the get-go. Getting a good hit in isn't pointless (they definitely feel it, especially so when she manages one with her pipe), but they're just a bit taller and faster, and with their longer reach, she almost never gets the opportunity to pause between her ducks and strafes and leaps, and when she does get one, it's usually a glancing blow and not a proper smack. The whole thing's a great lesson in keeping strong and dodging like hell 'til she finds the perfect chance, because in the short time she's been sparring, she's really only managed to land a real blow on either of them maybe three times each, and it takes a hell of a lot of patient vigilance to make it happen. In all honesty, she hasn't beat one of them once and she doesn't think it's gonna happen any time soon.

Eventually (and often sooner than she'd like), she overdodges or underdodges and has the space of a split second to do little more than think _ohshit _before she's getting a brain rattling punch or smack to the head. She just can't _move _fast enough, and all her thoughts on strategy are utterly pointless in the face of a plain-and-simple power gap.

It's frustrating and difficult, but she's definitely improving (dodging on a whole 'nother caliber and spotting opportunities to strike back and building muscle memory) which means she can't justify stopping. Unfortunately.

The only good news is that she wins against Luffy basically every single time.

Not because she's stronger than him. They're almost entirely on par in that respect, because they do the exact same exercises and both spend the rest of their time running around on hunts, building up their stamina and reflexes and basically everything else combat-helpful that comes from hunting down very lethal animals on a daily basis. No, she doesn't win because she's stronger. She wins because she's _smarter. _

Even without the pipes (and the spars are split pretty much fifty-fifty in terms of with weapons and without), Valentine just has a better grasp on her control (and Sabo and Ace's abilities, and her weapon) than Luffy does. Luffy struggles _constantly _with trying to figure out his devil fruit, and while it'll give him a crazy boost in the long run (once he figures it out), for now it holds him back. Valentine dances around him and punches, shoves, kicks, and finagles her way into victory after victory. And with the pipe, her victories come _much _faster.

The only problem is that Luffy can stretch, and in close quarters that gets to be a bit of a problem. Ace and Sabo can shrug him off easy, but her strength isn't built up enough yet to escape from loop after loop of rubbery arms.

Still, as long as she doesn't make a dumb mistake, nine times out of ten she can get Luffy dazed from a good right hook (which she doesn't feel even _slightly _guilty about considering he doesn't feel pain or impact from blunt force) and pin him facedown to the ground with his hands tied in a knot behind his back. (She actually gets quite speedy at basic knots.)

The only way to get Luffy down is to put him down hard, immediately, but that much is true for all of them 'cause their stamina is so insane. It'll be different when they start learning ways to fight that'll burn that hard-earned energy, of course, but right now, their spars are a fantastic way to learn how to put someone non-lethally out of commission as fast as possible.

And make no mistake, she gets put out of commission very quickly, and very frequently.

"Sabo's point," Ace says, tone bland as he adds another tally to the board. Valentine, from where she's sprawled on the ground, rolls over to her back with a groan.

The canopy of trees above their chosen clearing (not the clover meadow, that's still a secret) is particularly lovely today, she thinks. Shame she's seen the view so many times.

Her eyes flick wearily downwards and she spots Sabo's extended hand, grasps it, lets him pull her up.

"That was good," says Sabo, smiling as she clambers to her feet. He lets go as she stabilizes, straightening. "I almost thought you were gonna hit me for a second, there."

"Shut _up," _she responds immediately, leaning down to snatch her longpipe off the ground. "I really did have you, you know it."

She did. Somehow, she'd nailed a dodge and lunged forward past the swing of his pipe and gotten inside his guard. For once, it had been _Sabo _backpedaling.

The resulting headrush from her small success had made her sloppy and he'd regained control of the fight almost immediately, putting her out with a neat blow to the shoulder soon after. (If they could, they went for hitting places other than the head, knowing what damage repeated hits could cause. And by 'they' she means Ace and Sabo, because Luffy doesn't take any damage and she never gets the opportunity to apply any of her hard earned carefulness. Definitely unfair.)

"Natural skill," Sabo smiles smugly, and at her deadpan look the smile melts into a more sincere grin. "Just practice, Val. You're improving just as fast as we did. Take your own advice and give it time."

She blinks at the nickname _(Val? Really?) _but lets it slide. "If you say so. Only reason I'm not askin' your secrets is that I can't fit any more exercise into the day. It'd kill me."

* * *

Staying clean is hard.

She has one (read: one) shirt (a maroon tank top, one of her favorites from home), one pair of shorts, and one pair of boots. Her socks are long in tatters by now, the fabric of her clothes worn thin from more handwashes than she can count.

And her hair is getting _long. _

"Too long," she grouses, fingercombing it furiously. She's thankful it's nothing like the echoes she remembers, curls and waves that tease into snarls easily. Instead, it's like Makino's (though the color is different), and she shares the same fine, straight strands that tend towards softness. She's lucky she has it, or else she'd have long chopped her hair off with the most convenient sharp implement she could find. Now, it's so long that it doesn't even need a washing every day, and it's easily fingercombed straight with the barest attention.

Definitely nothing like she remembers.

In fact, it's-

"Anything you need, Luffy?" Her tone is neutral, distracted, but Luffy just blinks, openmouthed, as she catches his staring.

"Can I touch your hair?" he reaches out with grabby fingers, bold as brass, and Valentine's eyes widen as she ducks away.

"If you wash your hands first." She's wary, but presents her terms matter-of-factly, because his palms are still stained with snake guts from the hunt, and Luffy works best with requirements communicated clearly.

"Okay!" he says cheerfully, darting towards the downstairs bathroom, thunderous _thump-thump-thump_s on the stairs as he elephant stomps down them at top speed.

She sighs out long and loud through her nose and considers chopping it all off anyways.

When she gets back home to Makino, she'll have to get her to teach her (and get the supplies) to figure out the best way to keep it out of her face. The jungle may have many things, but it has an unfortunate lack of hairbands.

* * *

She starts landing more hits on Ace and Sabo. Nothing even slightly approaching victory, but it starts to be less of an unmitigated beatdown and more of a struggle. This, she thinks, is a good sign.

Luffy, meanwhile, is improving at a slightly slower rate.

"Have you ever thought about _when _you let your arm go, Luffy?" she asks idly, reclined on the grass with her chin propped in her hand, still panting off the exertion from her spar with Sabo. (She lost, obviously, but she thinks she might've made him break a sweat that time. Maybe.)

"Just whenever, right?" Luffy's punching the air, muttering _gomu gomu no…! _over and over again, letting his fist fly elastically towards the treeline before it reels back and knocks him off balance with the force of its return. Ran zips through the air around him as a red dragonfly - a form she's taking to more and more often, these days - cheering him on in her peppy, high-pitched voice. The whole thing is as characteristic as it is adorable, and if it's doing nothing else, it's at least improving his range and his ability to stretch his own limbs.

Unfortunately, doing the same thing wrongly and repeatedly only breeds bad habits.

The background noise of Ace and Sabo sparring explosively in the background (the clang of clashing pipes and shouted taunts) washes over her, comforting and familiar. She breathes in, out. Strokes absently over the fluffy, dozing kitten form of Ilirya, curled up inches away in a patch of springy grass and sunlight. He purrs quietly, relaxed, a puddle of calico fur and whiskers and twitching ears.

(Even if they can all-out spar between themselves, they leave their dæmons out of it. Pitting soul-against-soul is something reserved for _true _enemies.

Plus, when someone you care about overpowers your soul with their own, it hurts worse than almost anything else. They learned that lesson the hard way.

So their dæmons always relax on the sidelines, or curled up in pockets, safe and away from the fight. Some lines aren't meant to be crossed.)

"Maybe do it when your hand's 'bout where it is for a normal punch," she suggests, offhand, scritching under Ilirya's chin (to thunderous purrs of approval). He'll figure it out eventually, of course, but surely that much is common sense, right? Not interference.

"Whaddaya mean?" Luffy's hand _snaps _back, narrowly avoiding clocking him in the face, and he shuffles back a few steps from the whiplash, teeters before he gets back balance. It's leagues better than he was in the beginning, already, when he couldn't even throw one of his arm-stretches before getting knocked down from his own returning force. Can't hit anything worth a damn, of course, but still. Progress.

"Like… throw a regular punch, maybe? The way your arm goes when you do that, just… copy it. If you just fling your arm around, it's not gonna hit anything."

"'Kay." Luffy pauses, and he'll never run out of determination to keep going, to muscle through and improve, but even to her, he looks like he's thinking hard. Ran, for once, has gone quiet, lands on the brim of his strawhat. "Show me?"

Valentine grins. With a huff of exertion, she pushes herself off the grass, reaches her hands above her head with a mighty _streeeeetch, _and strolls towards him to do just that.

* * *

"Hey. We're gonna go mug some people for our pirate savings. Wanna come with?"

Valentine pauses in her next sudsy scrub.

She's washing Luffy's shirt in a basin filled with soap and water while the boy in question is currently conked out, snoozing away the hottest hours of the day. He wouldn't usually be asleep, but he stayed up late with her the night before, mimicking her demonstrations and listening to her rattle off combat pointers (that in all likelihood went in one ear, out the other), so he barely slept.

"You don't think I'd hold you back?" Despite her vocalized doubt, she starts rinsing the soap away, cleaning the shirt off in preparation for hanging it to dry, movements automatic.

"You'd make a good distraction, at least," he replies honestly, his dæmon squeaking agreement from the haven of his cravat. "But you're not half-bad with the pipe. More than good enough to deal with the people we'll be beating up."

She's not sure she feels fantastic about mugging people for money (echoes of morality and Makino's lessons and the jungle, a cruel and honest teacher, war within her), but it's for a good cause.

"...Alright. Give me a second. I'm guessing we're leaving Luffy here?"

"For now. He can come when he gets his first kill."

"Got it." In interest of keeping Luffy safe until she scouts this entire operation out, she agrees with his logic. Ilirya scampers out of her shirt, shifts to a sneaky-looking ferret perched on her shoulder, and Valentine gives Sabo a rare, sincere smile, eyes crinkling. "I'll be right down."

* * *

Beating people up for money does not compromise her morals as she feared it would.

For one, they keep to the people who beat the shit out of others and steal _their _valuables, so. There's that.

(There's so many people that know them by name or reputation or appearance alone. She asks later and Ace tells her _nah, we don't know who they are, but they know who _we _are. _He says this with an anticipatory grin, and it's not one of the rare nice ones she's come to like. It's a smile she's not at all fond to be on the receiving end of (and she isn't, not anymore, as much as it makes her instinctually wary). She knows the fate of the people who it's for and she doesn't envy them.

Then he half-turns it to her (body language including, like they're in on a joke) and his eyes say, maybe without him even intending it: _and they'll know your name, too. _

She calms. The past is the past, and Ace is too all-or-nothing to do things by halves.

There's also people that live in the Gray Terminal that Ace and Sabo _know. _People of all shapes and sizes and levels of wear and tear who greet them by name, say _hey, who's the girl?_, grin in their directions in a way that looks half-deranged more often than not, their dæmons feral and hungry looking, and Ace and Sabo greet them _back_, bearing lofty and language rough like the lords of the streets that they aren't but they _are_, and they're just kids but she knows exactly where they get their arrogance from. It's from this, this fear and reverence, this infamy.

Whether friend or foe, this place is, indisputably, a place that knows of Ace and Sabo's strength. _Which puts me_, she realizes, _above them in terms of combat capability. Even though I'm eight._)

For two, the dynamic is so different without Luffy that she doesn't spare much time to think about morals.

(Ace banters differently with Sabo. When Luffy's there, he always keeps aware of himself; always keeping the big brother role (though he'd furiously deny it if she pointed it out, no doubt). With Sabo _and _Valentine there, he sort of… well, he relaxes a bit. Talks to Sabo like normal and gives her the honor of extending his attentions beyond his best friend, including her in conversation, jokes, banter (and he's not the type to do that stuff on purpose so it must mean he really _is _warming up to her). He can tell himself whatever he wants, but Valentine's come to realize that beyond Ace's mean outer shell, Sabo is right: Ace may not be nice, but he is kind.)

For three, she's distracted by Sabo telling her all about the pirate savings. Which she's realized she wasn't supposed to already know about, so she's keeping her trap shut and letting Sabo refresh her memory.

"-so we can sail the seas, get out of East Blue. You wanna come with? You don't eat a lot, so you wouldn't put a dent in our funds."

The offer is offhand, casual, but Sabo keeps sneaking glances at her sideye and Halia is perched on his hat, a sparrow, peering over at Ilirya (still a ferret on her shoulder) with dark, pinprick eyes. Valentine laughs merrily. "Are you sure? I eat as much as you, Sabo."

"Not as much as Ace or Luffy. They eat like those crocodiles in the east part of the jungle." His voice is sly.

"Oi." Ace is taking the bait (she thinks he knows what he's doing, though, by the way a smile keeps trying to sneak onto his face, sticks there persistently, half-stifled, and morphs into a quirked, sarcastic parody of a grin). "I eat way more than Luffy, thanks. He could never keep up with me."

"You sure?" She grins, nudges his shoulder with hers, teasingly. He teeters before straightening, regaining balance, giving her a brief and inscrutable look. "His stomach can stretch. He's made of rubber, you know."

"Figures that _that's _the first good use he finds for that fruit of his." Ace tries to sound dismissive, but it comes out fonder than he's aiming for.

They share a laugh and the sentiment, warm even in this broken down, ragtag place, and her heart goes distant to Luffy, still sleeping (if they're lucky) back at Dadan's, safe and quiet (a rarity, for him).

Man, she loves that kid.

"If I come, Luffy can come too, right?" She's smiling, knows the answer, but she has to ask.

"Well. Yeah." Sabo. "He's just not along this time 'cause he's asleep and he's not strong enough, yet. Plus, we haven't even gone out to get money since you got hurt. Couldn't get rid of Luffy long enough."

"Ah." She meant with the whole pirate thing, but he's answering like she's asking about mugging thugs for funds, so she won't make a fuss about it.

Come to think of it, actually, what Sabo's said makes sense. Luffy is too restless to stick by her bedside (floorside), so he probably stuck to Ace and Sabo like glue while she was recovering from her injury. "Does Luffy know you want to become pirates?" She redirects the subject gracelessly, landing on the first question she thinks of.

"Nah. Never told him. Why?"

Valentine holds back anything that could give her away, including (but not limited to) a monumental anticipatory smile, a wheeze of laughter, and a maniacal giggle. "He likes pirates. He'll be excited to find out."

"Well, alright. If it'll get him training more. That kid needs all the strength he can get."

She tries her best, but she can't hold back the tiniest laugh. (Ilirya puts his paws to his muzzle and quietly cackles.)

* * *

(Luffy wins against her in a spar. Once.

Ace and Sabo _won't let it go. _

"Never knew Luffy was the strongest kid around-"

"Wow, Val, you gotta spend less time cleaning up, all those wasted hours are coming back to bite you in the-"

"Will you guys _shut up?" _She's dusting herself off furiously, ignoring the exultant cheers of Luffy in the background (_I won, I won, I WON!_) as she recalibrates, determined, and decides to never let it happen again.

She knows exactly what went wrong.

She got sloppy, didn't pay attention, and Luffy snared her in a bear hug close-quarters. She didn't escape fast enough - wanted to save her energy for future spars, didn't want to headbutt Luffy in his hopeful, determined face - and she was immobilized faster than anything. She lost.

She lost.

"...I actually can't believe you lost, though," Sabo admits, and she tunes out Ace still making fun of her so she can turn a sharp eye to Sabo, focusing on him. "You're stronger than Luffy. I mean, you're _good. _You always win."

"I got lazy," she admits quietly. Ilirya is a red-eyed treefrog clinging to her hand, cold comfort, and she sighs. "I let him get close. I assumed I would win, because I always do. But I'm not _really _stronger. I just fight smarter, and when I stopped doing that…"

She looks up to the sunlight filtering through the leaves. They're starting to go orange and yellow with autumn, getting older, as all things do.

"...I gave him openings. I got sloppy. I lost," she finishes.

Sabo is quiet as he looks at her, and after a moment she realizes Ace is, too. They both look thoughtful.

(Luffy is still cheering his head off in the background. She doesn't begrudge him this.)

She doesn't lose to Luffy again.)

* * *

Compared to Ace and Sabo and wild tigers and snakes, regular people and their static, stable dæmons look like they're moving in slow motion. It's comical how easy it is to land hits.

The curved tip of her pipe is resting against the ground. It's still relatively clean (for now, anyways. She avoided headshots because they _bleed, _went for the backs of knees and arms and shoulders instead), but she feels like it shouldn't be.

It's so easy that she feels a bit bad, actually. "Does it usually go this smoothly?"

"Pretty much," says Ace, currently rooting through one of the downed guy's pockets. His dæmon is pinning the guy's writhing snake dæmon (a common variety, no larger than a branch, nothing like the terrifying species that inhabit the forest) down with a careful paw to the throat, claws lethally sharp and extended to prick at its scales. Halia is out of her usual small, quiet forms; she's a python, coiled 'round the struggling dæmons of three others, eyes cold and tongue flicking out to taste the air as Sabo keeps watch.

"People here are weak," Ace continues, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Just the stationary pirate crews are a bit stronger. Don't really gotta steer clear of them, though, unless it's one'ah the leader guys, or there's a buncha them."

Sabo's nodding along. "Got it," she says, accepting, but she has a sneaking suspicion she's forgetting something.

* * *

They tear through the Gray Terminal like a hurricane, laughing and slinging friendly barbs (less friendly barbs towards their victims) and running all the while, dæmons shifting easy and quick like falling water, like breath, like the snap of a finger. Is this what being strong feels like?

(_Why does she feel like she's forgetting something_-)

* * *

She feels like she's forgetting something because she did.

Porchemy is a periwinkle-haired man with paper white skin built like a fucking tank. His clothes clash horrendously with his coloring, he wears a sabre belted to his mustard-striped hip, and despite his best efforts at ornamentation, his beady eyes and disproportionately large body remind her of a pig. That's just as well, with his boar dæmon trotting at his heels, tusks gleaming razor sharp in the sunlight even from such a high vantage point, so far away.

"Steer clear of that guy," Ace mutters, and they've retreated into the fringes of the forest, overseeing the entire terminal as they consider their options (between scouting for their next set of targets and finishing up for the day). They're on one of the massive boughs of the treasure tree (filled with gold and jewels and chalices, five years of work), but it doubles as a fantastic lookout. "He's part of the Bluejam pirates. Not crazy strong on his own, but sadistic as hell. Me and Sabo stole some money from his underlings, once. He's been goin' for our blood ever since."

"Good to know," Valentine says, faintly. She thought they'd dodged a bullet, all those weeks ago, but the shadow of the future is looming over them like a missed opportunity. Weren't they supposed to have avoided this? Or, because Luffy never interfered, did Porchemy never find them, and the Bluejam Pirates are still looking for Sabo and Ace?

(She didn't even remember Porchemy's _name _before Sabo mentioned it. He was just _'that big guy with the spiked gloves that won't lay a damn finger on Luffy, not in this lifetime,' _and she'd thought she'd managed to carry through on that ironclad internal promise, made silently and with blood. It's not an extremely important detail in the scheme of things, but it's extremely relevant right the hell _now. _Why'd she forget about this? Why'd she put it behind her, like it was all over, gone, avoided? He's _alive_, he's right there, and he's going to be a problem, she can feel it.)

"He's probably looking for us. Good thing you moved in, Sabo. It wouldn't be safe for you to sleep here."

"Yeah. I don't wanna get scalped."

A chill tingles over her spine. "He scalps people?"

"Yeah. Does it for fun, too. We gotta make sure he doesn't see you. With how your hair looks…" Ace trails off, pinking over his freckles, barely visible through his dark tan. "You wouldn't wanna get caught." He turns away. "How much did we get for the day, Sabo?"

Sabo hauls out their bag of loot.

"Not bad," Sabo murmurs appraisingly, the gaping lip of the burlap sack revealing coins, pearls, and several golden cups and crosses. "Good haul today. Nothing special, but not bad at all."

There's a moment of silence, filled only by the twittering of birds and the buzz of insects and the rustle of the leaves, and Valentine gazes out into the Gray Terminal, eyes trained on Porchemy like a hawk. It's hard to even consider looking away.

"Thanks," Ace says, a non-sequitur as he breaks the quiet, and she startles to realize he's looking at _her_, dæmon (for once) unnervingly doing the exact same, a bridled weasel curled over his shoulders. She blinks. "For today. You didn't have'ta come."

"Glad I could help," Valentine replies honestly. She's very aware of her pipe - splattered with not just animal blood, now - laying on the bright green moss of the huge branch, Ilirya's teeth bloodied with the golden ichor that passes for the blood of other dæmons. It's slightly frightening and uncomfortable, the carnage she's wreaking on real people (not beasts, anymore), but she'll do anything to be stronger. Anything for Luffy, really. (And anything for these two, she's starting to realize with a sense of quietly dawning horror.) "Happy to help, really."

"Well, that's good," says Ace, grinning, "'cause you're invited every time we go from now on. You gotta pick up the slack for Luffy."

Valentine raises an incredulous eyebrow, but she's smiling. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. How else are we gonna buy all the food he's gonna eat?"

"Well," says Sabo, with the air of great genius, "we could just steal it."

There's a moment of silence.

* * *

Their first dine'n'dash is the next day.

Getting through Edge Town is utterly laughable, and before they enter the downtown area - strewn with the filthy rich and exactly the sort of restaurant they want to target - Valentine uses some of the treasure she hauled in the day before to buy an actual dress from one of the many secondhand shops boasted by one of the more rundown parts of Goa Kingdom. Out of the tank top and shorts she's been wearing for two months, she feels like a new person. Or an old person. A different person.

The boys certainly look at her like she is.

"Luffy," she says patiently, "I wore dresses back in the village. You've _seen _me wear dresses."

(The shopkeep looked at her strangely, but didn't ask questions - very used to shady customers and the art of not having a big mouth, running a business on the Edge - when an eight year old girl (herself, as odd as that thought is to reconcile) pushed the jeweled brooch over the counter. It's ludicrous overpay for the dress, but she got a new pair of socks and shiny, functional boots from it, so she's more than happy.)

"Yeah, but not for a while!" Luffy pokes at her sleeve - a puffy, capped thing with lace - before his hand rears back, wary.

"It's not gonna _bite," _she says, exasperated. As if pale pink fabric and white embroidery is the most lethal thing Luffy's faced in the past month.

_"Get__ back in the disguise," _Ace hisses, and Luffy's hand quickly zips back into the massive black overcoat, the whole lineup wobbling ominously for several seconds (she hears furious, outraged whispering) before it finally straightens up.

Valentine holds back her giggle with _mighty _effort. Even if this doesn't work out, seeing the boys in their 'disguise' makes it worth it.

She much prefers her own, obviously. There's something to be said about hiding in plain sight.

* * *

They eat at a steakhouse. Valentine's pretty sure she hasn't had steak since her last life. Luffy's pretty sure he hasn't had steak since _ever_.

It's a narrow line to walk, keeping Luffy from shouting out their identities for the world to hear and yanking him back, teetering, from the edge, but it's worth it (and not half-because it's not just her that does it). If it's not Valentine shoving a palm over Luffy's mouth then it's Ace or Sabo, and at one point her and Ace (both bracketing Luffy in the too-big gilded chairs of their fancy-as-hell private room) both slap their hands over Luffy's shouting mouth in tandem to keep him from yelling out for fourths (fifths? Sixths?) and busting their cover. Her hand gets there first, his (sticky and sweaty from steak juice and the exhilaration of getting away with it) clapping over hers with a resounding smack, and they both cut their gazes past Luffy's full-mouthed and muffled (slightly panicked, but that'll clear when he swallows his food) face and make eye contact. Faster than she can even blink a grin steals over Ace's face, eyes scrunched shut and fuller than she's ever seen from him, dimples indenting his freckled cheeks and eyes crinkling nearly shut.

Luffy swallows his food with a mighty gulp and they both yank their hands back, keep shoveling steak into their mouths (she needs to keep reminding Luffy to _chew his food, _'cause otherwise he'll choke and the commotion of that would sure as hell get them discovered) and this whole thing was _such _a good idea, she's gonna let Sabo win their spars for a week. (Hah.)

She's unfairly pleased by this.

* * *

Luffy comes to the next treasure-hunting/mugging/Gray Terminal trip by unsaid consensus. She's glad she doesn't have to bring it up. _Good chemistry, _she thinks to herself, happy with the nonverbal communication, as Ace and Sabo do the work for her and break the news/invitation to Luffy. For _if he wants to come, _Sabo adds, offhand, and Luffy's going off like a bottle rocket.

Obviously, Luffy wants to come.

(They can't _actually _leave him behind on a regular basis, and it's not the least of which why that they don't really want to. He hasn't gotten a kill yet, sure, but if their dine'n'dash taught them anything, it's that the three of them collectively can manage Luffy.

_Well, not really 'manage,' _she thinks to herself ruefully, yanking Luffy out of the clumsy downswing of a thug's shitty sword. _I don't think Luffy could ever really be managed. Mitigated, maybe. Or weathered. Like a natural disaster_.)

Still, with all three of them looking out for him, Luffy's probably the safest kid in all of East Blue. Barring the ones that don't have fights with adults three times their size and hunts for crazy beasts _twenty _times their size.

* * *

Weeks blur together, training and hunting and the Terminal and dashes, the four of them getting closer by inches, and on a day like any other, they decide to go for ramen. There's something important about this, she knows-

(The golden pocketwatch Sabo flashes, the one with the embossed flower-)

* * *

They make their escape in a tinkling rain of shattered glass.

Valentine's heart is in her throat, giddy, as her dress flies up (she hears gasps from the crowd) from the wind tearing at her as she plummets down, down, down. Her free hand darts out like a snake and she catches hold of the long pipe anchored in the bricks (nothing, after keeping balance on slick river rocks and clutching handholds coated with slippery moss and honing her reflexes faster than a lunging tiger) and she's grinning so wide her face hurts as they run through the streets, dæmons a doberman/border collie/labrador/greyhound pup running beside them, yipping joyfully into the bright sunshine, because she never could survive a four story leap from _before, _could she? Let alone pull it off with that much style. The boys are happy too, chattering as they race down the road about the food, the fall, the fact that they pulled it off, and she can feel Sabo's arm jostling against hers as they run, see Ace's victorious grin and hear Luffy's laughter, and she can just tell (can feel it, somehow) that today is a good day-

"Sabo? Is that you?"

The moment slows, grays out, as she looks to the side.

It's a man - large, middle aged - with a black mustache and a top hat and a cravat. He's dressed in black and blue, and he looks stricken. As if, perhaps, his dead child is running through the streets of Goa with a pack of ruffians.

Her head whips back to the front and she keeps running.

(_Sabo! Come home! _The call echoes after them.)

Her good mood has been well and truly extinguished.

* * *

(Please, she's not ready-)

* * *

There's a confrontation, just as horrible and heartwrenching as she imagined, expected, knew it would be.

She intervenes when Ace grabs Sabo by the collar.

"Enough," she says sharply, and Ace and Luffy (who might've forgotten she was here, with how silent she's being as they corner Sabo up against a tree, press him for answers, and he looks so small-) pause in their barrage of an interrogation. Sabo glances over to her, and his expression is neutral, trying to keep it together, but his hat shades over his eyes and his expression speak of resignation in a thousand quiet languages.

Enough.

"This is _Sabo. _If it's important, he would've told us." She stares particularly hard at Ace, who's frowning, looking at her. He doesn't let go of Sabo's collar.

"I hate liars and cowards," says Ace. "If Sabo's been tricking us all this time-"

She can hear the ghost of hurt rising in his voice, and she cuts him off. "Sabo's not like that, and you know it." She's harsh, matter-of-fact. As she needs to be. "Let him explain."

(Even she does not assume Sabo will be able to keep this from them.)

He tells them.

* * *

_My parents love money and power. Not- not me._

It's the hitch in his breath (the one she knows intimately, the one that comes when you're trying to hold back tears) that decides it.

She steps forward and pulls Sabo into a hug.

(He fell in love with the stories that people told him. Tales of lands across the sea, fantastical and strange, and isn't that so human? So hopeful? She wants to see those same sights, see him happy, more than anything-)

"Let's get out of here," she whispers, choked up like she hasn't been since she got her hope back in these boys, this family she's found. Sabo's still close to her, hasn't pulled away, but he hasn't reciprocated, either. "Let's see everywhere those stories talked about and more. Yeah?"

"Yeah," he whispers back, and then he's wrapping his arms around her and squeezing desperately tight. Not even a second later she can feel the unmistakable sensation of rubbery limbs wrapping around the two of them every which way, binding them tighter together with an _oof _and a watery smile

"Me too!" Luffy pipes up from where he's plastered against Sabo's side. "Hey! Ace!"

"I'm not gonna- _hey!" _

One of Luffy's hands yanks him in, sends him careening against Sabo's free side. Ace's arms come up, almost reflexive - one around Sabo's shoulders, hand clutching hard, the other yanking her even tighter - and then they're all laughing, Luffy loudest of all, and Sabo's crying quietly, trying not to let them hear, muffling his tears in her shoulder, painting the pink and white lace with salt.

* * *

(He's not an orphan. So what?

She knows (does she?) what it's like to have a parent that makes you want nothing at all instead- and she knows what it feels like to _lose, _grief gaping and hungry and all consuming-

Does she?)

* * *

They make a promise.

(The occasion in which they told Luffy about the pirate fund was immensely explosive and extremely hilarious, but she's glad it's in the past. These promises are too important to be delayed.)

She listens to Ace and Sabo pour out their souls, draw back the bowstrings of their hearts and aim for their goals. She feels full with it, the rebounding hopes and dreams that they carry. She's smiling so wide her face hurts.

She steps forward.

"I'm gonna see the whole world," she says, "everything beautiful and terrible in it. I'm gonna… I'm gonna protect you guys." Her breath hitches. "And I'm gonna be strong! Stronger than I ever was before…"

She trails off.

"I'm gonna live a LIFE WORTH LIVING!" She screams the last of it to the sea, the foam and the salt and the creatures down below, and it echoes within her. She's not empty, anymore, but full, full of sound and memories and feeling.

And love.

* * *

(When Ace has fame and strength and the fear of the world, he'll have them standing behind him, hands open to catch him if he falls.

When Sabo travels, writes his book and learns and sees _everything, _he'll have them, their letters and their smiles and their determination to keep him going, wherever he may be.

And when Luffy becomes pirate king, he'll have them. He'll have _her. _She'll stand beside him and keep him safe even when he doesn't need it, give him hugs and smiles and tough love and advice and company until (and maybe even after) he gets sick of her. She makes this promise to herself.

Even if they're not all together, even if they don't see each other, they'll never stop supporting one another. And that's a promise she'll keep 'til the day she dies.)

* * *

"Did you guys know?"

Her heart rises, shedding sparks, to her head. She almost can't think with how much she's feeling right now, joy golden like syrup in her veins. Ilirya can't stay still, shifts kitten-sparrow-dragonfly-ocelot-lemur-lizard-treefrog, flitting around with Ran and Halia and even Ace's dæmon, all shifting in tandem faster than she can look and they _match, _unmatch again, keep changing-

Ace looks giddy. Like he can't believe they're all listening to him say this, like he's been planning it for a while. He yanks out the cork. She swallows hard, tries to get down the lump in her throat.

"We can become family if we exchange sake. It's pirate tradition! And if we're all gonna be pirates…"

Everything - _everything - _crystallizes in her mind. The sunlight, the rustling leaves, the smell of salt and the sea, the crashing of the waves-

They're all sitting around a cut-off stump, four ceramic red sake cups (they must've been pilfered from Dadan's cabinet, they're too nice and scratched-up from wear to have been stolen) sitting on the wood, innocuous, and even Luffy and Sabo know that something momentous is about to happen, because they're paying rapt attention (even Luffy) as Ace pours sake into the cups.

He finishes pouring, tosses the bottle to the grass, raises his own cup with a grin. "We may not be in the same places, but we can always be with each other. We'll always be family! Closer than blood!"

Her heart hurts.

(So this is what Ace wants more than anything. A family. Something in her, baring it's teeth, fervently agrees and promises they'll _never be taken away_-)

"No matter what! So…"

"I love you guys," she says, clear as day. The changes she's made (to everything) ripple through everyone's lives, but never has she seen it so clearly as now, this ragtag group of shooting stars. She'll never let them burn out.

They turn to her, startled.

"Thank you," she says, soft. "For everything." _Everything_.

_Thank you for loving me, _she wants to say, desperate and raw. It wells up in her like an echo, but she can't think for the life of her where it's coming from. All she knows is she _means _it, means it with all her heart-

"We're family, now," says Ace, yanking her out of her echoes, matter-of-fact, and she tactfully ignores the sheen in his determined eyes because she knows he'd never admit it, knows he never cries because he doesn't want the world to see him breaking down, and she won't take the dignity of that choice from him. "You don't have to say thank you for stuff like that."

"Yeah," Sabo adds, a gap toothed grin on his face.

"Yeah!" cheers Luffy.

She just laughs, joyful and watery. She raises her cup.

—

**Notes:**

(ASLV. Let's see how long that lasts, shall we?)

Dæmons show a lot of insight into character dynamics and hangups, here. Bonus points if you can figure out any one characters' significance.

Also, a spotted hyena is actually extraordinarily fitting for Dadan. Just check out the wiki page (though you might want to steer clear of the more explicit bits and skip straight to the behavior section).

Chapters are coming out quick and hot because I'm currently in love with this universe. 10k chapters every two days is not gonna be the norm. ^^;

(Formatting may be slightly fucked in this chapter, but I can only do so many rereads with how ao3 on mobile glitches before I lose my mind. God, I hate ao3 publishing on mobile! Unbetad, but I don't think there's any spelling mistakes - or at least I hope not - and any defiance of the rules of grammar are entirely deliberate and stylistic. Runons are in vogue, haven't you heard?)


	3. Chapter 3: Cake

They tumble back into their room at Dadan's, still fizzing and shedding sparks.

They're all giddy, can't seem to stop smiling even though their cheeks hurt, and Luffy is chattering a mile a minute and their dæmons are still playing, playfighting, shifting like crazy, and she never wants this to end. Being family changes _everything, _and it's just a title and not a state change so it shouldn't mean so _much,_ but-

Now she belongs.

Luffy's whining and shoving ineffectually at Ace's arms as he tries to escape a headlock and a noogie (doesn't look at all upset, though, not even trying to keep the grin off his face, a mirror of Ace, and isn't _that _insane, Ace smiling wildly, unreservedly, like he doesn't care who sees), and she's bumping shoulders with Sabo, keeps trying to trip him up just for the hell of it, just for the joy of _contact, _of attention given and received in equal measure (he does the same as her, wearing a gap-toothed, blinding grin), and she wants to scream and shout for the joy of it, wants to yell out to her past self-

_Something wonderful is coming, _her soul sings, sang, and she giggles.

They're tumbling over one another like puppies when they finally make it back (ignoring Dadan's shouts as they tromp up the stairs, bellies already full from a massive fish roasted over a riverbed fire earlier), and she's loathe to separate from them but she needs a bath.

"Get _off," _she mutters fondly, fully shoving Luffy and his rubbery arms off her shoulders (he yelps, but she's pushed him onto the squishy cushioning of a tussling Ace and Sabo, to their dismay, so it's a planned landing).

"Takin' a bath," she throws over her shoulder at the tangle of limbs, and grins (even though no one can see) at the chorus of replies that it brings her. Her smile doesn't fade as she shuts the bathroom door.

When she exits, later, skin pink and clean and in a burst of hot air, dressed in her comfy sleep clothes (a tank top and shorts, surprise), she has a plan.

* * *

The bathroom door opens, gushing steam. She executes phase one.

"Cuddle pile," she says, and behind her she can hear the pattering of feet across the hardwood. She braces for impact.

Luffy _slams _into her, bowling her over into the blanket pile. She hits the pillows with an _oof, _squashed flat by eighty pounds of rubbery menace.

Luffy's laughing _(shishishi) _and rubbing his cheek on her shirt like a cat. His hair, still damp and squeaky-clean, tickles her chin as he nudges under her neck and his arms wind around her, doubling up just to be safe.

She is well and truly cuddled.

Ace and Sabo slink warily into the room proper, heads likewise still damp from the bath and clad in sleep clothes. Both are staring at her, aghast (well, Sabo aghast, Ace something more like disgruntled), and they peer in dismay to where she's taken all their blankets (and several more from the cabinet besides) and a _fuckton _of pillows. Her intention is clear.

"Cuddle pile?" she makes it a question.

"Cuddle pile!" Luffy's shout is muffled in her shirt, but there's no question mark.

Sabo, still running off the high of earlier and easy-to-convince besides, is smiling wider and wider like he's getting on board, pretty much in. Ace looks like he needs more of a push.

"It'll be way more comfortable," she says, which is actually true, if not at all relevant to her nefarious schemes. "And Luffy will stop scooting closer to you guys every night. More of a plus for me, to be honest. It was starting to get inconvenient-"

Sabo grins and heads on over.

Her eyes widen and her speech cuts off in a moment of _ohshit _before he bellyflops onto the pillows.

She squeaks, Luffy shouts, exhilarated, and Sabo laughs.

One down.

"Aaaaace," she calls out over the commotion of Luffy and Sabo, arm sticking out from the blanket pile and hand beckoning, even as her face is smushed into pillows and Luffy. (The boy in question is sparing an arm for Sabo, and Sabo is half-wrestling with him, putting up token protest, as Luffy's arm wraps around him- and around and around and around.) As she cuts her gaze over to Ace (with the one eye not pressed into the pillow and the back of Luffy's head), she wiggles her fingers, invitingly. "Ace. Get over here."

He's looking very alarmed.

"Yoink," Luffy giggles, a word that she taught him (_why _did she do that, again?) as rubbery arms reach out (when did those get free?), stretch, grab, _yank._

(Ace is - disputably - the strongest of all of them. If nothing else, he's on par with Sabo, incredibly swift and strong, with reflexes that exceed that of a raging tiger. Point being, he's not _slow._

Still, he doesn't dodge Luffy's grab, doesn't protest as he's yanked into the pile of pillow and blanket and Luffy and Sabo and Valentine, smothers his token protest (a groan) in Sabo's shoulder as they try to rearrange their tangle of limbs into a layout that makes sense.)

They settle, warm and pressed close and planning on staying that way. Their dæmons are all cuddled together on Valentine's free side (arrangement going dæmons-Valentine-Luffy-Sabo-Ace), a cat that she assumes must be Ilirya warm against her back - all something fluffy and soft in the dark, she can't quite tell - and Luffy sighs, unutterably, completely happy, and for the first time in a long time, Valentine shares the sentiment completely.

* * *

Things go back to normal (the new normal) and days pass and they _still_ cuddle, burning bright and gold. Valentine could get used to this.

Being family changes nothing and everything.

"Hey Val, hey Val! Can you do that thing I like?" Luffy peers up at her beseechingly from where he's pressed to her front, eyes wide, and she sighs.

"Yeah, Luffy." She sighs again, overexaggeratedly, as she starts running her fingers through his unruly windswept-even-with-no-wind hair. Her other arm is occupied, Ace's fluffy head of hair (waves black as pitch, texture so different from her and Luffy's and she's wanted to touch it since she saw it but she stops herself, mind going back to cuddling with Makino and seeing Paloma striped and soft and twitchy-nosed in the dark) laying on her bicep while his back presses to her side (Sabo tangled with Ace), and she's somewhat afraid to move (feels like Ace'll startle like a skittish cat - or tiger, more like - and run off if she moves too abruptly). Somehow, still, she manages to weave her fingers into Luffy's hair without disturbing Ace pillowed on her arm.

"Yessssss…" Luffy practically melts under her hand, going boneless (as only he can go) and sighing happily as she cards her fingers through unruly, coarse-soft locks. Ace and Sabo - peering over, attention caught, a palpable weight - stare like she's murdering Luffy with a straight blade. A corner of her lips quirks up.

"My mom taught me this," Val murmurs.

"Yeah! She used to do it all the time…" Luffy sighs, yawns, pushes into her hand as she pets through the dark strands of his hair. She scritches, just the way she knows he likes it, and a soft smile steals over Luffy's face, eyes closing.

The grins are common, but the softer smiles are rare, so she treasures it, echoing his with a gentle smile of her own.

_(She remembers it like this:_

_Rewind to weeks ago, when things are approaching subzero between her-and-Luffy and Ace-and-Sabo._

_Luffy is unquestionably the youngest between the two of them, the brightest, and therefore the most spoiled (by her). She'll admit she contributes to it, but she tries to keep him on track, to treat him as an equal and not baby him. It sort of works._

_Point being, amid the myriad complexities that step from that particular issue, there's one thing she'll never have the strength to say no to when it comes to Luffy:_

_Cuddling._

_He drapes himself all over her whenever he damn well pleases, which is pretty often. Unfortunately, that includes when he's covered in mud, blood, or other unpleasant things._

_He also attracts stares. From Sabo and Ace, oddly, and it takes her a long while of her observations percolating in the back of her brain 'til she realizes that they don't really… cuddle._

_They'll collapse near each other, sometimes lean on one another, but that's as close as they get. Luffy tries to get close and Sabo doesn't mind it, but even he (like Ace) shoves Luffy off if he sticks around too long. Somebody, somewhere, some_thing_ taught them that they're not supposed to be touched._

_Basically, they're wondering why she's tolerating it. And maybe they're a little jealous of her blasé acceptance. Or a lot jealous._

_She huffs and pulls Luffy closer, chin resting on his hair. For now, with the way she's growing, he's short enough to tuck under her chin and hug close like a little kid; she'll treasure this, even if Sabo and Ace are anti-cuddle and don't look like they're gonna be changing their minds anytime soon.)_

How things have changed.

"You have a mom?" says Ace.

Her hand pauses.

Luffy makes an indistinct and muffled noise of complaint from where his face presses into her chest. She keeps going, slower, thoughtful. "Yeah. Her name is Makino. She lives in Foosha Village - the one with the windmills - at the base of Mt. Colubo."

"Are you… not on good terms?" Sabo's tone is impossible to read. He shifts, over on the other side of Ace, and Ace shifts in response, which makes the pressure of his head press harder against her bicep and his hair tickle against her arm. Neither of them are looking at her anymore, gazes carefully directed away.

Valentine shakes her head, breathing out slow. "No. It's not like that at all. At the beginning, well- you know how we were. Too weak to do anything properly, let alone go through the forest and back to town. And now, I guess we just…" She loses her train of thought, trailing off, focusing on the feel of Luffy's hair (feels like fur more than anything) beneath her fingers.

"We should visit her!" Luffy pipes up. Rescuing her. "Then we could eat some of her yummy cooking and she could read us stories! Not that I don't like yours or anything, but Makino does the funny voices really well. Then Ace and Sabo could meet her too!"

She's trapped in thoughts.

Is it time?

Has she been avoiding this?

"Family's gotta meet family, after all," Luffy finishes, sagely, and her resolve abruptly solidifies.

* * *

The next day, they set out across the jungle and down the mountain to Foosha Village.

Valentine is nervous. She's trapped in rebounding thoughts - how she used to be all the time, before Luffy - but Luffy's used to it, knows how to bring her out of it with the power of endless chatter and pure distraction. Ace and Sabo aren't, though - used to it, that is - and they look at her like she's a wild thing, strange in her grim silence and her lack of complete and utter confidence as Luffy keeps her grounded, as they run, Ran and Ilirya twittering together in low voices as they fly overhead.

Her confidence is almost always a sham. She doesn't have the strength or will to hide her weakness from them, now.

It's absurdly, accusingly easy to traverse the jungle. Doesn't even take them long - an hour, maybe - and she _knows _they couldn't do this at the beginning, so why is it so easy now? Is she misremembering things?

(No, she thinks. It's just the guilt slinging accusations at her.)

They really couldn't do it in the beginning, she knows. But a while after that - a month in, maybe - they could've done it. Gone back. Not easily, she knows, and they might've gotten hurt, but they've been capable for a while now. Their strength is insane, after everything. How long has it been? A few months?

They got stolen sometime in August. How many months has it been?

* * *

Makino stands with her hands over her mouth.

She's exactly like Valentine remembers. Hair a little longer, maybe, but isn't her own the same way? A different bandana, too, but that isn't at all unusual. Makino wears a different one every day. Her clothes are the same as on the day she and Luffy left. She remembers it clearly, the white blouse with the green vest and the long black skirt, her telling them to _be safe, won't you? _giving them a hug and a kiss on the forehead before they went out for the day, bright and unexpecting-

"Valentine…?" Makino murmurs low, fragile, like she's afraid. Valentine can barely hear it through the cage of Makino's fingers. She's standing on the path out from the bar - just left, door closing behind her, out to run some errands, maybe, it's late morning - and her eyes are wider than Valentine's ever seen them, big and brown. Her own eyes, staring out at her.

"Mom," Valentine says, clear as anything. Makino gasps.

Paloma leaps.

She's never seen Paloma _glide_ before, truly exercise the second half of her settled form's name. Paloma flies through the air in an impossible arc, the world around them paused and out of focus, and she _smacks_ against Valentine's chest with a squeak- and _she's solid, she's really here Makino-_

A half second later Valentine is being hugged by her mom and she's crying.

* * *

"You're taller," Makino says, laughing wetly, still keeping Valentine in the warm circle of her arms. Valentine doesn't try to move away.

(Ilirya is reuniting with Paloma, matching her, and they're curled up between the pressed together torsos of the both of them, Paloma chattering at Ilirya fiercely, tearfully, and she's never seen a sugar glider cry before but she thinks today is the day that'll change.)

"Only by a couple inches," she whispers. She's stronger now, too, limbs filled out and less scrawny, and she knows that's what Makino means but she can't take her eyes off of Makino's face. Not even to answer her question more fully.

Makino doesn't mention Valentine calling her 'mom' (unsurprised that she knows, almost), and doesn't bother wasting time on unimportant questions. "Is Luffy…?" Makino expression is frantic, looks heartbroken and hopeful, but her question is brisk, almost hurried (like ripping off a bandaid), prepared for a heartrending answer.

"Ah- no, he's completely fine." Relatively speaking. "Hey! You guys can come out now!" She shouts this behind herself, voice still thick, not taking attention off of Makino's face.

That means she can see the joy breaking over Makino's features as Luffy tumbles into view (held back and mouth covered by Ace and Sabo during her and Makino's reunion, no doubt), Ran flitting after him, and then the absolute confusion that follows when Ace and Sabo come into view as well, tentative, emerging from one of the alleys sandwiched between the bushes and the bar, just barely in view. (They're noticeably different than she and Luffy; rougher looking, maybe, odd with Sabo's tophat and missing front tooth and with Ace's freckled anger and perpetual frown, but god, she knows Makino will accept them. She has to.)

She gazes over Makino's shoulder at the bar. Her mind wanders. How long has it been since she's seen it? The sign, the stained wood, this particular view of the windmills and the sea?

It feels like it's been a lifetime.

Makino's arms open even wider as Luffy sprints over, blubbering, and he's squashed it down with Sabo and Ace and the forest and family, but Luffy loves Makino and he missed her. There's room enough in Makino's arms for the both of them, though, which is good because Valentine doesn't want to have to ever make the decision of whether or not to leave her mom for Luffy's sake. Not ever again, at least.

(Ran matches Ilirya and Paloma, dives into the squeaking cuddle pile with a tearful leap.)

"Luffy," Makino breathes, relief painting every inch of her, in how firm she wraps her arms around them and holds them tight, tight, so tightly. "I'm _so_ glad you're both safe-" and the multitudes contained within that 'so' are unutterable, infinite. "I thought you were…"

"We're okay," Luffy promises, bright through his tears, clinging back just as tight. "And we have more family, now! Ace and Sabo! They're my brothers!"

It's the first time Luffy's used the word, pushed him and Ace and Sabo beyond the vague but all-encompassing idea of 'family' promised by the sake cups. _Brothers. _She can hear Ace's audible, utterly surprised inhale.

"...Brothers?" Makino sounds like she's processing. Understandably. "You too, Vally?"

She hates the nickname - _Vally_, it sounds like _valley, _agh - but for Makino and Makino only will she tolerate it. "They're family," she says simply, honestly. "Not brothers. To Luffy, yeah. But not to me."

(She already had a brother, she remembers. But he's gone now. She won't be replacing him.)

Makino seems done with the questions, because she hugs her and Luffy closer to her chest and buries her face in the two of their small shoulders, cheeks pressing against their own, tacky with tears and salt. Valentine makes an effort to hug so tight she'll never have to let go.

* * *

The whole story comes out, in fits and starts.

Makino closes the bar. (She was originally going out to the market, but firmly cancels it for another day.) She's carrying Luffy (well, Luffy's arms are looped around Makino and he won't let go) and Valentine is sticking to her like glue, so they shuffle into one of the plush, upholstered booths, a round one cozy in the corner, and the walls and lights and cherry-colored wood are so familiar that she really wants to cry. Ace and Sabo slink into the bar after them (at Makino's insistent invitation, not taking no for an answer) and stay quiet, wary like feral cats that expect to get the boot out as soon as it's realized that _they're _here, it's them, and they're not welcome here. Halia and Ace's dæmon are hidden; shifted small, no doubt, and it's typical for Sabo but it's so utterly out of character for Ace that she almost sends him a concerned glance.

They manage to get to a seated position, Luffy's on Makino's lap, Valentine pressed against her side and leaning against her under the cradle of her arm, and Ace is the next bravest, because he slots into the booth after Valentine, Sabo hovering indecisive. Sabo - after a long pause - follows after Ace, oddly vulnerable looking with his tophat clutched in his hands (face grim like he's facing down the barrel of a gun), and they both look so afraid, so _young._

Ace is the closest, so Valentine reaches for his hand.

Her fingers find his and she clasps around his palm, firm, fumbling, and he reflexively yanks his hand away but she won't let go. Angry, panicked eyes dart to hers, cornered, but whatever he sees in her it stills him.

_It's okay, _she doesn't say, doesn't need to say aloud. Ace's palm is sweating, nervous, and he _is _afraid. Afraid of this, of everything, of losing them. Of losing her and Luffy to Makino.

As if that could ever happen. Love is never losing. Love is always _more, _not less

(She tries to tell him this with her eyes, but imagines some of it must get lost in translation.)

Still, he relaxes by increments. Lets her hold his hand. Her other hand finds Luffy's, and their fingers interlace, practiced, worn comforting and familiar like a well-loved stuffed toy. Valentine leans against Makino, holds Luffy's and Ace's hands (she sees Sabo grabbing for Ace's other under the table, a lump rises in her throat), and closes her eyes.

They tell Makino everything.

* * *

As it turns out, if you go out adventuring like usual and you don't return, your mom assumes you've been kidnapped or worse.

Garp didn't tell Makino anything. Either he forgot, or-

Makino's rage burns incandescent. She stifles it down for their sake, but Valentine can see it in her eyes and in Paloma, silent and still, a hound baying for blood.

_(And there will be blood, _Makino's eyes promise.)

—

—

* * *

—

[THREE MONTHS LATER]

It's January.

The leaves are long past turning red, now; at least, in Foosha Village, they are, if not the ever-green boughs of the forest climbing up Mt. Colubo's peaks. It's bitterly cold outside, but far more temperate than the winters Valentine remembers. Hence the long sleeves and pants but no jackets.

It's Saturday and Makino is frying up pancakes for breakfast. She's making blueberry, Sabo's favorite (chocolate chip was last week and strawberry-chocolate-chip the week before that and banana the week before _that),_ and Ace and Sabo and Luffy and Valentine are all perched at the bar, patterned shirts a predictable motif of red and blue and yellow and red again (though darker), mouths watering and chattering about today's hunt to distract themselves from the delicious smell coming from the kitchen. Sabo suggests dropping in on Dadan, just for a visit, and Ace says _nah, we always do that, Sabo, let's go to the terminal today. _Luffy agrees with Sabo on principle, then backpedals when he realizes that would mean visiting Dadan (who's only grown on him so much, though of course, she's grown on him a little) and Valentine, ever pragmatic, suggests visiting Dadan first (briefly) and then making their escape to the terminal so they have an excuse to leave as soon as possible.

Valentine rarely suggests anything, but when she does, it's usually at least a passable idea, so they come to quick agreement. Dadan's, then the Terminal, then maybe a quick dash for lunch (they haven't done one since two weeks ago at the gyoza place, trying to keep a low profile), then perhaps sparring, hunting and roaming the jungle for the afternoon, dropping half the spoils off at Dadan's before they return to the bar for dinner.

All in all, it looks like a promising Saturday. The first batch of pancakes hit the plates, and, after a chorus of _thank you_s - and boy were those hard for Makino to instill - conversation put on pause, they dig in with all the grace of ravenous beasts.

* * *

They pit-stop at their hideout (well, more of a treehouse than a hideout, dizzyingly high in the branches of the tallest treetops they could find), 'cause they want to drop an extra few pillows and blankets off there before they go. Luffy chucked one of the last ones off the canopy during the night (which isn't a moment Valentine would like to repeat, even in the safety of her memories, thanks), another was used (terminally) as a decoy in a bear attack, and the other was- well, simple to say it's well and truly gone, so they need another. (Six pillows is just dissatisfactory. It's only gonna get colder, too, which calls for more fluffy blankets.)

Valentine gazes up at the flag standing proud from the crow's nest, gaze lingering as the others start the long climb down (so nerve-wracking at first, slow going, but second nature now), her eyes tracing over the simple, bold design.

ASLV.

_(No offense, _Sabo observes, gazing thoughtfully at their rough draft for the flag, sketched in his steady, practical hand, _but ASVL just doesn't sound as good- really, not trying to be insulting, Val-_

_None taken. I agree. It looks better in writing, but when people say it out loud, ASLV sounds better. _She carefully enunciates - _ay-ess-el-vee - _and compared to ASVL, there's really no comparison.

Something inside her didn't want to break that 'ASL' up, was more than content to be a second thought tacked-on at the end.)

From pirate flag to crow's nest to sturdy, long rope ladder (she double and triple checked that one a trillion times, and yes, it's not fraying at all, despite being pilfered from the dumps of the Gray Terminal) the whole hideout is, of course, built like an airborne pirate ship. Sabo designed it, after all, so it's only fitting he'd design it to show off all of their dreams.

There's a barrel for fresh water, a vertigo-inducing deck (she doesn't often go out there), the crowning jewel of a ship's broken-off wheel, and - of course - the highlight of the whole thing, the crows nest.

It boasts a view that can't be replicated. Valentine wishes frequently that the jungle wasn't so dangerous, because she wants to show Makino this, this view of Goa and the clouds and the sea that only birds have seen. The logistics of getting Makino through the jungle and up a tree hundreds of feet high (slick with moss and latticed with vines and utterly unclimbable for normal humans) are, unfortunately, too difficult to allow it. (Much to all of their disappointment.)

Their flag is simple. Black, with a white set of crossbones. Emblazoned over the bones are four letters - ASLV - colored in orange, blue, yellow, and red, in that order.

(Ace wanted red originally, but on a hunch, she offered orange as a substitute. To her surprise, he declared he liked it better immediately and told her, flippant, that she could take red if she liked, orange was his favorite now. As he turned away, dismissive, she simply shook her head in confusion, baffled. Boys.)

Makino sewed it for them.

"OI! VALENTINE!" Ace is shouting up at her, and- are they all already at the bottom? Shit.

She hurries down the tree. While she's at it, she tries not to slip and break all her bones, wishing for gloves to warm her chilled fingers but knowing they'd fuck her grip to hell.

Her hand tightens on the vine, and - still lost in thought - she makes her way down with the ease and surety of long practice.

* * *

Ace has long transcended his skittish phase and is now firmly entrenched in the 'crushing on Makino' phase. It's slightly weird because, hey, that's her _mom. _But, to be fair - and she thinks this smugly to herself - Makino is the kindest, loveliest, gentlest person on the whole island. She totally understands Ace being dazzled and amazed by her majesty.

Doesn't mean she won't give him shit for it, though.

"Hey." She nudges Sabo with an elbow, speaks (at normal volume) out of the corner of her mouth like she's trying to keep a secret, easily avoiding the trash strewn in her path without sparing it a glance. "Did you see Ace's face when Makino gave him the last pancake?"

Not particularly inspired, but it'll do. Sabo, thankfully, catches on immediately, stepping into a dance they've long since perfected. "Oh, yeah," Sabo says, musing, with a (false) air of dawning realization. "Was he turning red, too? Or was that just my imagi-"

"Shut the hell up, you guys," Ace grumbles, smartly rapping the ground with his pipe where she and Sabo had been standing mere seconds before (they easily dart out of the way of his halfhearted blow, slow as molasses in comparison to his usual). Luffy's giggling in the background, _shishishishi, _and it's egging them on even further. She and Sabo share a brief look - _shall you go first, or shall I? _\- and she sees the eagerness in Sabo's expression so she nods, acquiesces, lets him have the floor.

She loves Saturdays.

* * *

They've truly, officially moved out of Dadan's.

Her and Luffy's old beds are shoved together in the back room of the bar, and the timing of their cuddle-puddle ways was _extremely _fortuitous, because there's not enough room (or beds) for all of them to have their own space in the bar. That, and Makino (and Valentine, silently) know the risks of being seen too often in the village.

Hence them living there part-time.

They've been there more often than not in the past three months (Makino doesn't like to go too long without seeing her or Luffy, understandably), but their hideout is a perfectly livable substitute. The winter is only going to get colder, and as weather intensifies, they'll probably be spending more nights in the back room of the bar (it's much easier to keep warm, there), but she has no doubt that as spring and summer come (and Makino's overprotective hovering wanes) they'll spend more of their nights in their hideout: closer to the forest, closer to the terminal, and closer to all the training and beasts and riches they can reach.

Their improvised queen sized (well, two doubles shoved together) bed is more of a nest than anything else. It has a plethora of pillows and blankets, and though it's always cozy, it's almost never made, blankets in utter disarray. Makino's long since given up on having them make it every morning.

(After two months of sleeping on blanketed floors - and yeah, two months, _that's _how long they were gone - a bed almost feels _too_ comfortable. She can tell that Ace and Sabo feel the same way.

Shame. They'll have to get used to it.)

* * *

Makino teaches Sabo and Ace (and Luffy, to an extent, reminding him) how to be normal, tidy children. With manners.

Maybe a quarter of it sinks in.

They've been half-domesticated, those two, and it still brings a wide smile to her face to see them crowded around the bar and jabbering away, waiting for lunch like it's something they can take for granted. They _can, _and that's wonderful, because all kids should be able to do that, to know they'll get a meal for sure. God knows Valentine's missed it. (_Kid or not,_ she thinks.)

(Valentine is, of course, exempt from this manners training, because back when Makino taught her, she took to manners like a duck to water, like this was her second go at it and all her lessons were a simple reminder. Ace and Sabo - who have no such luck - give her dirty looks over the edge of the bar as Makino clearly and concisely explains the nuances of honorifics and forms of address.

Ace is reluctant at first, but she can see the tiny starburst of interest rising in his eyes, day after day, and knows that her tales of Shanks - the fantastically powerful pirate who gave Luffy his strawhat - are sparking an idea in him, a debt. She doesn't make any efforts to discourage it.

Sabo, similarly to her, takes easier to manners than Ace, but he seems oddly determined to discard all but the most necessary. In a way, she understands.

Luffy, just... well, she knows some of it must be sinking in, but god only knows what parts. She hopes it's the important bits.)

They'll never be really tamed - at least not at this age - and Ace's eyes still get a little squirrely when Makino pulls him into a hug (she and Sabo and Luffy smother their giggles) but they've got another home. And Makino doesn't- she's been worried, thought they were _dead, _but she's really not a hover-mom, and it shows. Weeks pass and she doesn't try to tie them down and keep them from running off, getting stronger. Makino knows they can handle themselves (at least she does _now, _after she's seen her and Ace and Sabo knock down massive trees in several blows for firewood), and she doesn't try to stop them from doing that. She just hugs them a little tighter, holds them close a little longer, and tells them to always come home.

They do.

(It's vaguely horrifying how good of a mom Makino is. Valentine makes an effort not to look a gift horse in the mouth, wonders why Makino didn't have a kid Before, wonders if maybe she _did, _but something happened-)

She tries not to take it for granted.

* * *

Valentine gets her whole wardrobe back. She gets _dresses._

She finds they're much more inconvenient to run around in than how she remembers them (and, after two months straight of wearing shorts and a tank top, she's become extremely partial to the style). They are, however, _very _good for keeping cover at dine'n'dashes, so she pilfers a few to keep at the hideout.

(She considers wearing her necklace - still safe and sound in Makino's jewelry box - but she isn't nearly strong enough, yet. If she's still alive by fourteen - which she well should be - she'll start wearing it then.)

Aside from that, she gets all her old shirts and pants and skirts back. She gets variety. It's _glorious._

Makino gets new (and repurposed) clothes for Luffy and Sabo and Ace, too (her sewing skills are unreal, she can alter anything to fit, so even if some of it's secondhand, it's never ill-fitting). Ace already had a couple different shirts, but Sabo never had anything except his blue and white clothes (is that what he ran away in?) and he's adorably excited to get some new stuff, though he wears his old outfit frequently, still. Luffy, too, is happy to get all his shirts and shorts back, and Makino does their laundry now, which is a plus (Valentine got her and Luffy through well enough by handwashing their clothes, but it's infinitely more convenient to let Makino throw it all in the washing machine and let it hang out to dry). Another plus is that here in the village, nothing tries to steal their drying clothes straight off the line (she can still remember the strangled shriek that built in her throat when she glanced out their window at Dadan's and spotted a monkey running around with Luffy's only shirt stuffed over its head like a hat). Everything here is tamer, easier, and while she doesn't want to go soft, she doesn't think there's much risk of that when they venture out into the jungle every day.

(And even if she did, would it be such a crime?)

* * *

Turns out, her birthday passed while she and Luffy were gone. They have a very belated small party.

(They have her favorite foods for dinner, and a chocolate cake frosted with tangy sweet icing for dessert.

Makino promises to teach her anything she wants as a gift, so she requests _ways to style my hair _and adds _cooking? _as a hopeful afterthought. Makino laughs and promises she can do both, teases that she'll have to bank a present from a future birthday. They shake on it.

Luffy's present is a fistful of wildflowers and a smooth, polished riverstone the color of burnished copper. Sabo gives her a dazzling golden locket no larger than an acorn - pilfered from the terminal, no doubt - shaped like a heart _(you like hearts, right? _and how did Sabo even remember that, she mentioned it maybe _once),_ a clasp holding it shut. (Perfect place to put a small picture, she thinks, clutching the fine chain.) And Ace gives her a new pipe, much better than her old one, with the grip wrapped in tigerskin and the rough edges carefully buffed away, shiny polished and ready to be used.

She loves them all in different ways, a little more every day.)

Luffy's and Sabo's birthdays are (fittingly) in the summer months, so they don't have to worry about that for a while, but-

Ace doesn't even _have _a birthday. Makino is appalled.

She swiftly gives him one. January first (not extremely original, but easy to remember, at least), and she gets a cake from the bakery and decorates the bar and everything. It does a hell of a lot to warm Ace up to Makino, and Valentine promises that skies and seas as her witness, she's going to make sure Ace has a hundred more birthdays to look forward to, after this one.

* * *

Weeks pass.

* * *

Luffy gets his first kill, and its slightly earlier than she thinks it was/should be.

"You did it, Luffy." Ace smiles (not a grin, not a frown, one of those inbetweens he's been discovering that come faster and easier these days), and Sabo gives his own congratulations as Luffy cheers, fistpumps and jumps up and down and generally loses it (as, she privately thinks to herself, he deserves).

"Nice job, Luffy." She smiles soft, welcoming, and has the foresight to drop her new (though the balance is becoming familiar, now) pipe to the ground as Luffy flings himself at her, wraps his arms around her shoulders and legs around her waist and clings.

"I did it!" He sounds giddy, breathless, and her smile stretches into a grin as she wraps her arms around him and holds him tight.

"You did," she breathes. "Awesome job, Luffy."

* * *

"Aurelia," Ace tells her, voice quiet under the pounding rain.

The weather is getting colder and rainier day by day, and they're taking shelter underneath an overhang, escaping the downpour, and Luffy and Sabo are already asleep (Luffy sprawled across their laps and Sabo snoozing on Ace's shoulder). Ran is a ginger kitten curled up on Luffy's stomach (the nostalgia warms over her, stealing her breath) and Halia, Sabo's dæmon, is a siberian hamster nestled in his cravat.

It's unbearably adorable.

"What?" her stroking of Ilirya (a mouse in her hand) pauses, and he squeaks in affront.

"My dæmon," Ace says, voice low. He's not looking at her. He's looking out into the rain, body still, as if he can keep his pride if he simply doesn't look at her.

She lets him.

"Her name is Aurelia, huh?" she resumes petting her own dæmon, smiles soft and happy as the dæmon in question flutters down to Ace's knee, a monarch with vibrant wings. "This is Ilirya." Her voice is amused.

"I know," he says, because _obviously, _of course he does, but it relaxes a little of the tense line of his shoulders as she hoped it would. The rain thunders against the roof of their little shelter, and while the air is cold and there's droplets of rain leaking through the ceiling, the symphony of water is indescribably soothing. Something about it makes it feel like there's nobody else in the world. Just the four of them, two awake, two asleep, waiting for the rain to stop.

Valentine lets the silence stretch. It's comfortable, such a far cry from the beginning that it's incomparable. She's glad they got this far.

She knows that being upfront with Ace is best. If she tries to beat around the bush, he'll get defensive or think she's pitying him.

"Why don't you and Aurelia talk?" she says.

Ace doesn't say anything, for a long moment. He gazes out into the downpour, expression distant, sunkissed tan and freckles washed out by the watery, dim light. He won't get pale in the winter, his skin is too naturally dark for that, but the lack of sun is starting to wash him out-

"She can't talk," he says.

She breathes in. Out. "Can't?"

"Or won't, maybe. I think she did when I was younger…" he trails off, sighs, runs his free hand through his tangled and rain-dark waves of hair. He's only eleven, but in that moment, he looks older, more tired. "She stopped."

"You know why?"

"I don't really want to talk about it." He doesn't sound hostile, just exhausted and defensive. Even this - him letting her see his sad frown and the defeated, questioning caste of his features - is something she shouldn't take for granted, so she lets it go.

"Okay," she says. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time me and Luffy busted up one of the villager's prize watermelons?"

He takes the distraction gratefully, and they talk until the rain stops.

* * *

Garp comes back in early February.

Makino is angry.

(_Understatement, _she thinks, awed, and you wouldn't imagine that a St. Bernard could look ashamed before the minuscule speck of a raging sugar glider, but Garp's dæmon looks disquieted, ever-wagging tail still and limp, hanging low.)

Makino yells at him - yells,_ Makino_ \- and he simply stands there, expression baffled at first but cresting into dawning realization and then acceptance as she keeps going.

"Ah," he interrupts, cutting Makino off - _big mistake, _she privately thinks - "sorry. I left you a note. On your doorstep. The wind might have blown it away."

"The _wind?" _Makino explodes, and never before has Valentine been so glad Makino's never gotten truly, properly angry at her like this. From Luffy, Ace, and Sabo's expressions as they watch in stunned semi-terror, they're being shown a side of Makino that they hadn't previously known existed and they're rightly terrified.

_Joke's on them if they didn't see this coming. They couldn't see the storm in her eyes._

Safe from the rain, she keeps quiet and watches.

* * *

To Valentine's extremely mixed feelings, Makino accepts Garp's genuine apology but tells him that negligence will never be an acceptable excuse to her. _Ultimately,_ Makino tells Garp, _I'm never going to trust you with my children again if you try to pull a stunt like this._

Garp tries to protest but Makino steamrolls him.

_Ace can't live here, at least, _Garp tries, and Makino goes supernova.

* * *

When the whole thing is over and done with, they settle on living at Makino's part time, spending as little time in the village as humanly possible, and keeping Ace from the attention of the villagers. (For the cost of seeing her mom again, it's a minuscule price to pay. Everyone else, for varying reasons, seems to agree.)

Garp leaves with little fanfare, Luffy peering at him curiously.

(She'll never call Garp _Ji-chan _like Luffy does, nor even _Jiji _like Ace, but a tiny sliver of her heart goes out to him. If he hadn't done what he did, after all, she wouldn't have Ace and Sabo. And that doesn't even bear considering.)

"Do you think you might've beaten him down too hard?" she asks Makino seriously, coming up beside her to gaze at Garp's retreating shoulders, impossibly broad but slumped in easy-to-read defeat. Even his dæmon looks forlorn; and she, at least, Valentine has more sympathy for.

"He'll be back," Makino replies, cheeks still flushed and eyes lively, lovely from anger. Makino's frowning slightly, but it softens when she looks down to Valentine pressed against her leg and peering up at her, eyes big and expression guileless. "He'll make it up to us. He's got a good heart, but he can make some stupid mistakes. He needed to hear that what he did was wrong."

"Did you need to yell?"

Ace and Luffy and Sabo are listening. Makino sighs through her nose, closes her eyes. "No, I didn't need to yell. But I was very, very angry. So I did."

Valentine accepts this wisdom, nodding sagely.

* * *

They're searching for their next target (victim) at the Gray Terminal, and Luffy's rambling about what he wants for dinner.

"Maybe we should get bear- or _ooh, _no, alligator! We haven't had gator meat in a while-"

He's rambling on (misleadingly childish and harmless looking, even with his scratched-up pipe in hand) about what to bring back to Makino to cook for their biggest meal of the day (Makino's never gonna have to buy meat at the market again, at least not 'til they leave the island), and Valentine looks on fondly, a small smile playing over her lips. Sabo and Ace - for once, a rarity - stay quiet and do the same, wearing hard-won slight smiles of their own. It's a sunny day, cold but not too dim-

She ducks the first strike at her head and lunges for Luffy.

She's almost fast enough. There's a commotion in her peripheral and she reaches, fingers grasping-

She yanks Luffy out of the way of the knife by his collar but the blade catches the back of her knuckles, slicing a sizzling line of pain sharp into her flesh. (Doesn't feel that bad but it'll hurt later, ohgod, don't think about it-) She pushes him out of the way, hard, shouts _run, Luffy! _before she swings her pipe at one of her attackers heads.

It lands, and he goes down with a sickening _thwack, _coyote dæmon howling in pain as Ilirya, snarling, tears at its throat and it bleeds gold. She ducks under another strike and breaks someone's reaching arm with another vicious swing of her pipe, smashes yet another attacker's face in (bone crunching) with the backswing, movement tight and controlled. She whirls to look for Luffy-

A man's got a hold of Luffy's arm and Luffy's shouting, _let me go, let me go! _and Ran is screaming, under the sharp teeth of a wild dog, and her heart bottoms out into her stomach-

Something catches her hard across the temple and then there's nothing.

—

—

—

She snaps back to consciousness.

Somebody's holding her by the hair and it _hurts. _Her hair isn't supposed to support her weight this way, even if somebody's holding her by all of it, not just a lock of it like Ace does sometimes when he's teasing (and Ace tugs gently, hard enough to smart if he wants her attention but never enough to _hurt, _not like this, not like this at all). She struggles, reflexive, a fish dangling off a line, hands going up to her hair to pry the fingers away - _stop, stop - _but someone laughs and prises her hands from their scrabbling, grabs both her wrists in one meaty palm - effortlessly, she's so sluggish from haziness and pain - and she hears familiar shouts.

Luffy. Ace.

Where's Sabo?

"Sabo's back where he belongs, little girl," someone breathes nastily (hot and moist and it smells _gross) _in her ear. She must've said that aloud.

"Fuck'ohff," she mumbles, tries frantically to think. No pipe, no Ilirya or Luffy or Ace or Sabo-

She opens her eyes.

Her vision is blurry. Something wet is dripping down her face, dripping off her chin and onto her shirt. Shit, Makino's gonna get mad if she gets it dirty. And her vision is blurry, too.

_Ace, _she recognizes. _Luffy._

They're being restrained by men. Two men, in Ace's case. Ran is being pinned by the wild dog dæmon from before - she's whimpering, sharp teeth pricking at her throat, wolfshape of her own (still just a pup, still just a _child)_ cringing on its belly with tail between her legs - and Aurelia is still, hawk eyes trained on the multiple knives pressed to Ace's throat. She's surrounded by more dæmons, but she isn't moving, because-

"Shame about the blood in your pretty hair, girl. I'll have to wash that out after I'm done with you."

Well, that doesn't sound good.

_LET THEM GO,_ Ace is shouting, struggling futilely, and Luffy is crying. Great, tearing sobs, so much worse than she's seen from him for a while, and what's-

Ilirya is near, she can feel him, but she can't hear him or see him.

"Keep the girl if you want." The voice sounds almost bored, and the speaker is a man with long, greasy looking black hair, a jagged hairline, stubs of teeth (did he grind them down?) and a reinforced glass tank strapped to his front. Within the tank is a lobster; the man's dæmon, no doubt. It's clicking its claws in a frenzy. "As long as the noble already has the boy, he couldn't give less of a damn what happens to the rest of the brats. Actually, come to think of it…" a mean, distantly amused smile steals over his face. "He might pay us extra if we take care of one of them. One less incentive for the brat to break out again, right?"

The rest of the men (his lackeys? The rest of the pirate crew?) laugh in chorus. Valentine can feel Porchemy's - who else could it be? - breathing speed up, hear his dæmon snorting and squealing in excitement.

Fuck.

"I said _let them go!" _Ace, again, struggling even as the knives at his throat press into his skin- beads of blood well up, roll down-

"Stop, Ace," she rasps, and somehow he hears her. Stills, eyes wild and panicked, expression stricken.

"Take care of Luffy," she whispers, "and-"

Whatever she was going to say next is swallowed by Porchemy's roaring laughter, and she gasps in pain as his grip tightens on her hair. Her face contorts, reflexive, pain and fear so close to the surface, and Luffy is crying again-

The hand releases her wrists to clap over her mouth and she struggles, scrabbling at the back of it fruitlessly, scratching with her nails but Porchemy just laughs and laughs. She hears shouting again, Ace, but it's distant. It's nothing like when she or Sabo or Ace quiet Luffy- this is pressing down _hard, _doesn't care if it hurts, maybe wants to, and she can't breathe, can't even think, and her vision is going dark as she loses air and it's all fading away even as she hears Ace's scream and feels a shockwave wash over her, it's all-

fad in g -

—

—

—

She regains consciousness very quickly.

She's being carried. She can feel the rocking motion of steps. She's tucked under someone's arm, from the pressure she can feel surrounding her and the unpleasant heat radiating off of the side of whoever she's being pressed to, and the smell of sweat and old, dried blood surrounds her - the same as before - so even with her head spinning, without opening her eyes she can tell it's Porchemy.

She stays limp, keeps her breathing even, and prays to fuck that Porchemy isn't paying attention. He doesn't seem to have noticed her being awake- then again, what good does it even bring her? What can she do?

Her head hurts. She feels a track of tacky, drying blood running from her temple to her chin - that's what the wetness was, earlier - still sluggishly dripping, and she has no pipe, no Luffy or Sabo or Ace.

Bluejam (and that's who it was, wasn't it?) said Sabo was _gone. _She carefully doesn't let her breathing hitch, stifles the stinging wetness in her eyes.

Ilirya is - if she's correct - hopefully regaining consciousness and doing the same as she, being carried by Porchemy's boar dæmon due to lack of alternative methods of transport (and he has to be near, or the agony of attempted separation would've woken her up). She can't hear any footsteps other than what must be Porchemy's dæmon (just Porchemy's and his dæmon's labored breathing, a second, lighter pattern of steps that must be cloven hooves), so if she's really damn lucky Porchemy is alone.

She doesn't want to risk opening her eyes and losing the advantage of surprise. She keeps them shut - not scrunched, that'd give her away - and breathes in, out. Even. Slow, like she's unconscious.

What are her options?

She doesn't have the urge to puke, doesn't feel dizzy, so she doesn't have a concussion. Probably. She feels tired (unconsciousness is calling to her, the sweet song of the dark, but she fends it off), and she doesn't have any wounds other than whatever's making her head bleed and the stinging slice across her knuckles.

It hurts to be right, but it burns like fire.

No pipe, no backup, but she has Ilirya. She's being carried by Porchemy (proclaimed 'strong' by Ace and Sabo), and there's (hopefully) no lackeys backing him up; just Porchemy, his dæmon, her, and Ilirya. And he's taking her somewhere, but it's not in a hurry, judging by the measured pace of his steps.

Okay.

His grip on her isn't too tight. He thinks she's unconscious, maybe didn't see her smash those fodder pirate's heads in, if she's lucky, and he's underestimating her. He thinks she's helpless, powerless, and weak.

He's not too far off, but it's the margin of error that makes all the difference.

_(Take care of yourself, _she wanted to say, call out to Ace before he did something stupid. _Take care of yourself, too.)_

She breathes evenly._ I have to time this right._

She can feel the blood drying on her skin, the faint breeze, the chill in the air. She can hear Porchemy breathe, hear his footsteps and his dæmons, but the rest of the world must be avoiding the sight of Porchemy carrying a bleeding nine year old through the Gray Terminal, because she can't hear anyone or anything else. And they must still be in the terminal; she can smell the pervasive scent of rot and decay. It disappears, usually, when she spends more than ten minutes here (the nose can get acclimated to anything), but if she concentrates, she can easily catch the stink of it, of the dead and soon-to-be-dead, refuse and putrid remains.

She'll have to yank herself out of the constraining circle of his arm backwards. That'll have Porchemy waste precious seconds turning around; she'll be out of his view, keep the element of surprise for a little longer.

Okay.

_Okay._

She moves.

She wrenches, twists, uses his back and beefy arm as leverage for her hands as she yanks herself out of Porchemy's rapidly tightening grip (ignores his roar of rage), and she _does _it, gets her torso and head out in a rush of motion, but she feels his grip snag on a lock of her hair- _yank_\- pull it out with a blinding spark of pain- and she hits the ground with a thud, shouts _Ilirya, elephant!_

Ilirya howls confirmation - over the noise of surprised squealing - as he grows, howl morphing into an indescribable roaring scream.

She's facefirst on the dirty ground and Ilirya's shadow is over her, trumpeting, and she feels the rush of motion displace the air just next to her as he lashes out with a monumental kick.

She can hear Porchemy's dæmon screaming in pain as he roars in rage, and she-

She lurches to her hands and knees, pushes off, hard - ducks the massive hand grasping for her arm - and staggers to her feet, jumps instinctually and unthinkingly to Ilirya's back.

She clears the ten-foot height with ease - maybe _too _much ease, she pushes off from the ground hard enough that she almost overshoots him, hands frantically grasping at elephantskin - and (Ilirya's still _too young _to be bigger, he's not even an adult yet) she lands on the rough skin of Ilirya's back, stabilizes.

"Run," she gasps, can't say another word but she hopes to god he gets her meaning, head swimming, and he does.

Ilirya shifts under her and it's vaguely terrifying, because she can hear the faint crackle of bone effortlessly and painlessly reforming and shrinking under her hands as he gets smaller and smaller. Then he's a rhinoceros, still too small but large enough for this-

"Charge him," she manages, and Ilirya does.

She tenses, stabilizes herself on the galloping back of a rhinoceros (Ilirya, just Ilirya) and her eyes open and her gaze flicks up, focuses.

She jumps.

She can fully see, now, the entire hated picture of him (alabaster skin, piglike face, utter bloody surprise in his eyes, and that'll be what kills him, he's not reacting fast enough) and she keeps her jump brutally quick and low, no more time spent in the air than necessary.

He sees her coming but he can't move in time. She hammers her fist into his nose.

She feels the bone crunching underneath her knuckles as she follows through, punching _through _with the practiced movement of a thousand spars, a thousand fights. She feels blood gush over her knuckles as she punches past him and lands, staggers, head throbbing, hears him hit the ground with a crash behind her.

She hears pained and enraged squealing as Ilirya fends off Porchemy's dæmon, and in her peripheral he's a snarling panther, now, but she drops to her knees and reaches for Porchemy's belt, heart hammering in her ears-

Her hands clasp around his pistol.

She yanks it out of where it's tucked under yellow and black fabric and rears back, staggers to her feet. Points it at his face. Porchemy's eyes flutter open, and he starts to lean up, but she cocks the gun and it sounds like a gunshot.

He freezes.

"Don't move," she says, and her voice is very clear, very calm. All of her panic has condensed, shrunk and consolidated into a speck denser than anything she's ever felt, and it's hiding in a corner of her brain for later. Her fingers tremble.

"You're not gonna shoot me," Porchemy rasps, bravado or confidence, and it's the first time she's heard him truly speak aloud. He's utterly massive, even on the ground, and she's well aware how easily he could overwhelm her. Her finger is on the trigger. If he moves, she shoots.

"I might," she says. She hears a particularly sharp squeal, and then- silence.

She doesn't look away from Porchemy, but her heart rises to her throat in hope. Dangerous. "It's unconscious, Valentine," Ilirya calls out, tone rough and low but overwhelmingly familiar, and she feels a hot wave of relief rash over her but she stems it, stifles it, because this isn't over.

Her eyes are trained on his face so she sees it when rage sparks in Porchemy's eyes. "This ain't the end, girlie. Next time, I'm gonna kill you and your little friends. First, the littlest brat- gonna torture him nice and slow and let you hear all the screams. Then you-" he licks his lips. "Gonna get that pretty hair of yours for my collection. Let that fuckin' angry boy, all full'a rage, hear the both of you scream 'til he's begging for death-"

She pulls the trigger.

She can't even hear the bang over the rushing in her ears, but she hears Ilirya's gasp like it's piped directly into her brain. She can see Porchemy's boar disintegrate into golden dust in her peripheral, see Ilirya rear back in horror from where he had it pinned under a paw, but she can't look away from Porchemy's ruined face.

She doesn't yell, but she feels so, so angry. Burning with it. Insides screaming with it. Her hands shake.

"I will break the whole world," she says, clear as a ringing bell, "to keep them safe. I will do anything. _Anything. _And do you know what you did?"

Porchemy can't speak because his jaw is a mess of blood and meat and bone, his eyes glazed over and unseeing. She can imagine what his response would be, though.

"It's okay," she says. "You don't need to say anything. I know what you mean."

Then she cocks her stolen pistol again and shoots Porchemy in the skull.

* * *

She pukes after.

Pukes until nothing but bile comes up.

—

—

—

**Notes:**

Ah, did I hint at angst? How about, uh, lots of fluff and then a one-two-punch of agony? :')

(Hey, if you're enjoying this, please feel free to drop a favorite and/or review if you like! It really keeps me going to see people interacting with Valentine and the rest of the changes I'm making to the One Piece world!

And if you've made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you liked the chapter. ^^)

Also, astute readers might noticed that I've changed the chapter title from 'Pancakes' to simply 'Cake.' I think it has more oomph, don't you?

Additional notes: Hm, formatting is difficult, here, as the creative uses of punctuation I employed on ao3 doesn't... really show up, for whatever reason. I'm using emdashes instead, which look a bit clunkier, but don't mess up the meaning of each break too badly, I think.

Rereading this is funny. I think I gave everyone, oh, two chapters of buildup before everything goes to hell? That's just how life is, unfortunately. Hopefully things will get brighter in the future? Of course, I know the answer to that. But it's not too much of a tease, because the answers for you are in the following chapters!

There is some beauty to amending author's notes long after original chapter publication after all! ;u;


	4. Chapter 4: Dark

**Author's note:**

Warning for mild gore, emotional turmoil, implied panic attacks, and at least slightly traumatizing events.

—

—

—

There are things they don't tell you about dead bodies.

The utter stillness and pallor she knows (she's seen it, even in her past life-) but the sharp smell of shit and piss as the body relaxes, the splatter of meat and blood and brain and flecks of bone from a gunshot to the jaw and the head-

And, perhaps worst of all, the quiet sigh of a soul passing into dust. The hiss of a drop of rain fading into eternity.

She finishes retching, stomach clenching and hunched over, gagging, and at her side Ilirya is whispering reassurances, holding her hair back carefully.

"-s okay, it's okay, it's okay-"

(-sounds like a mantra Ilirya is repeating as much for his sake as for her own-)

"Thanks, Ilirya," Valentine rasps, straightening up, offbalance and hemmed in (small, too small, everything is _wrong),_ and Ilirya scrambles to get back. He's in orangutan shape - unusual for him, he doesn't like humanoid forms - and it becomes quickly clear that he's shorter than her full height (could only reach her hair because she was leaning down), because as soon as she's standing, his tufted orange head only hits her ribcage.

As she fully straightens, he shifts to a bird, flits up to her shoulder, and immediately following is shaped like a mink winding himself reassuringly around her neck. He doesn't speak.

Valentine swallows. Her mouth tastes terrible. "Thanks," she repeats, and then:

"That. Happened." she tries it out carefully, then again. "That happened," she says, more firmly, and shudders. Her fingers clench and she realizes she's still holding the pistol-

She drops it as if burned, flinching as it clatters to the dirty ground. Not even cocked, there's no way it'd go off again, so why is she flinching? _Get it together, _she thinks to herself, winds her arms around her own torso in a parody of a hug. _Get it together…_

"-ave to find Luffy and Ace. Valentine? Valen-"

"I got it," she interrupts sharply, then calms, struggling to keep her breathing even. "I got it. Just. One moment." Her tone is mellower, forced, even.

Ilirya goes silent again, curls closer, soft fur against the sweaty nape of her neck. She takes her moment.

She closes her eyes, even if she knows it's a stupid idea, because Ilirya's watching and he's basically her second set, anyway, and he'd warn her in time if somebody approaches. She counts in her head - _one, two, three- _all the way to ten, until her lungs strain and they can't inhale any more cold air, and then she releases even slower, exhaling through her mouth, lips pursed.

She does this several times.

When she feels- well, not great, but not prone to shattering at the next vaguely hostile gust of wind - she opens her eyes again.

In the next moment, they narrow.

She's in the Gray Terminal.

That in itself isn't surprising, but she actually- she _recognizes _her surroundings. This is a path she and the boys (her heart gives a pang) often travel, closer to the wall separating the terminal and Edge Town than it is to the forest's edge: a narrow path, quicker than most and hemmed in by high walls of garbage on either side. Relatively few know about it (which may explain why she hasn't seen anyone since she's regained consciousness).

If she runs, she knows she could get to the wall in maybe eight minutes.

"I know where we are," she murmurs to Ilirya, and there's blood still running down her face and her hand hurts and she just killed a man and she feels _awful. _She just wants to stop, to not keep going in the most visceral way, but if she really loves her newfound family then she needs to fight to keep them.

That though puts things in perspective.

She remembers her battle calm. (Killing calm.) So she replicates it, gently and slowly, folding all her emotions into a heavy lump and then a speck as small as they'll go, condensing them smaller and smaller until she can shove them somewhere in a back corner of her mind, out of the way for later.

—

The high pitched grating of Ilirya's whine filters through, distant, to her brain.

Her eyes shoot open, glancing instinctually down, and Ilirya's a stumbling puppy half-lain over one of her boots (when did that happen?). He looks-

"It's okay," she rasps, echoing him, reaches down and picks him up in finely trembling hands and strokes his ears because she can't just _leave _him like that, whimpering and sorrowful on the ground. "It's not forever. Just until it's safe to let it go."

He doesn't respond. Just stays quiet and breathes in her arms, tiny ribcage rising and falling, eyes open but unfocused, small ears lain flat against his skull.

(She remembers him as an elephant, a rhinoceros, that burst of lifesaving strength and power. _He could never do that, now, _she realizes, not with her head all twisted up from this. If she wants Ilirya to be okay, she'll have to- process this.

Great.

Well, she can hate herself for being so high maintenance, but she could never hate Ilirya. Ilirya - her soul, her otherself, her second half - is always doing his absolute, complete best, which means that if he's like this, there's no other way he could possibly be.)

"Think you could shift to a snake and hide in my shirt?" she cajoles, stroking along one velvety ear. "Just like old times, yeah?"

Before can finish her last sentence, the soft fur under her fingertips is melding to rippling scales. She blinks and Ilirya is a serpent (scales patterned black and red and white, is he poisonous?) sliding under her neckline and into her shirt, coiling up on her chest, bigger than the slender garden snakes she remembers.

(Well, it's a good thing she's wearing long-sleeves. Not so good that it's one of her favorites, maybe, since there's a glaringly obvious patch of red - undeniably blood - stained somewhere just below her collar, but it doesn't really matter. She has plenty of shirts.)

Ilirya is silent and still, curled over her heart, but he's still breathing. Still warm.

Her expression tightens. What more is there to say? She starts to run.

* * *

The longer she spends conscious and running, the clearer her head feels, and the more difficult it gets to ignore the clamor of feelings welling up in her. _Later, _she tells herself, _later, _because there's no _time. _No time to cry or scream because Ace and Luffy could still be-

She keeps her breathing even, runs as fast as she can, darts through the winding paths with the ease of absolute familiarity, and stifles the cold prickles of panic trying to creep over her. Ace and Luffy have to be fine. Don't think about Sabo don't think about Sabo don't think about him at _all-_

She catches sight of blood and black wavy hair as she turns around the bend and her heart almost stops in her chest.

Ace is snarling with red running down his face and he has his pipe raised to Bluejam (who's laughing as he swings his sabre, parrying with ease) and all the other lackeys are unconscious, foaming at the mouth, and Luffy is curled around Ran and bleeding on the ground-

She darts in, leans down as she sprints to catch hold of her pipe where it lays on the earth, and in a twist of deadly movement she sends a vicious smash flying at Bluejam's knees.

The lobster in the tank on Bluejam's chest thrashes and she barely catches the bony edge of his calf as he jerks back - hears a soft _crunch - _and Bluejam curses as Valentine comes shoulder to shoulder with Ace.

"Valentine," Ace says, and his voice is more strained than she's ever heard from him before, raw and close to the surface but it's such a relief to hear it that her knees nearly give way. Ace isn't running on fumes (from her second-long glance he has a small head wound, some faint scratches from near misses, not much else) but he's stressed, panicked, Sabo's gone (taken taken taken) and god, he's _eleven. _He shouldn't have to stay strong for this, even though he is.

"I'm okay," she says, firm, reassuring, feeling the warmth of his shoulder against hers, because now it's impossibly easy to keep it together, to hold onto her cracked pieces with an iron grip. How can she fall apart while Ace is trying to hold on? Being strong for his sake, for Luffy, is the easiest decision she's made since she woke up.

"Sabo's- they took him," Ace chokes out, rage and helplessness leaking out and thickening his voice into something despairing, and she can't look away from Bluejam (standing back, observing them with a sharp eye), but she wants so badly to look at his face, comfort him in what little ways she knows how, even if she knows he'd refuse it. His dæmon- Aurelia must be small, hiding and curled up like Ilirya, because she's not out and fighting, and Valentine knows that she would be if she could. Just like her human. "I-"

"We'll get him back," she promises, cutting him off, vicious and low. They will.

Bluejam laughs, raucous and unrestrained (isn't even keeping his eyes on them) and she dearly wants to charge him and smash her pipe into his face, but something tells her to _wait._ (Then she notices his dæmon - the lobster - clicking its claws and facing forward in its tank, undoubtedly a second - if poor - set of eyes, and _shit. _That's not good.)

"Your _brother _is gone," Bluejam rumbles, sick grin creeping over his face, and fuck him he looks _amused. _Valentine feels her rage swell, come close to bursting, because Ace twitches at that, at the word Luffy and Sabo have been adopting but that he hasn't quite dared to, not yet.

He _will _get the chance.

"Funny," she says, sharp, tone colder than ice. She feels Ace shift fractionally at her voice, surprised or taken aback or frightened. Hopefully not that last one. "The last person who laughed like that was laughing 'til I killed him."

Her head is rushing and her stomach churns again. Ilirya coils in her shirt, agitated sliding of slick scales, and Ace tenses beside her, but doesn't shift away. Bluejam's laughter trails off almost immediately, fading into a considering, interested look, while his lobster is completely still, almost lifeless looking, floating in its tank.

_"You _killed Porchemy, little girl?" Bluejam says, and she's getting damn tired of the 'little girl' moniker, from him and from everyone fucking else in this godforsaken terminal. "Well," Bluejam grins mirthlessly, "in that case, you did me a favor! If he got beat by a little half-dead brat like you, he's better off feed for the rats."

A ripple of indescribable feeling whispers through Ace and Valentine.

"He's- he was your _nakama," _Ace snarls, clutching his pipe tighter, and-

There's that word. She's learned to ignore it, to slot it into the crew/family niche in her head (all the scraps of languages floating around in there could outnumber the legs on a centipede), but sometimes it's too oddly used and notable to automatically understand. _Nakama. _A promise of trust, belonging, and reliance. Unique to this world, filled with pirates and wonders and death, a place where people desperately search for somewhere to belong.

Bluejam doesn't even laugh this time. His grin simply widens. "Only the strong and the cowardly survive in this world, brat. If Porchemy didn't run, then he's weak. And I have no need for the useless or the cowardly in my crew."

"Dunno what that makes these guys, then," Valentine says, offhand (tenseness belying her easy words), keeping her eyes on Bluejam, still, nudging one of the downed fodder pirates with the tip of her boot. He's grungy and utterly unconscious - flecks of foam trail from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes are rolled back in his sockets so only the bloodshot whites can be seen - and it's a disquieting sight, with his unidentifiable furred, long-tailed, sharp-toothed dæmon unconscious and curled up on his chest. (She has a hunch why they're all downed but she won't verbalize it, not now.)

"They'll all die as soon as I get the chance to dispose of them," Bluejam states, lobster drifting in its tank, serene, and even Valentine can't help the reflexive tensing of her muscles, the emotion that flits over her face. "So thanks for saving me the inconvenience of killing Porchemy me'self," he adds, smiling wide at her with all his ground-down teeth on display, and her stomach lurches.

_"Dispose_ of them…?" Ace sounds as offbalance as she feels.

"They're weak. Useless." He waves a dismissive hand. "Trash. Now, _you _kids…" Bluejam shifts forward (Valentine's eyes laser focus on the leg she grazed, and he's favoring it, not quite a limp but slowed, hampered) and he offers an outstretched hand. "You kids are strong. Join my crew, eh?"

"I'd rather smash your head in myself," Valentine replies smartly, raising her pipe, before Ace can say anything. Her expression has no give to it whatsoever. Holding her weapon, her combat abilities multiply by about five, and with Ace at her side she's not afraid of him, not afraid of him at _all._

How can she bear to be afraid when she has Luffy to protect?

"Drop dead," Ace adds, barely a second of delay before he speaks. He sounds hesitant - for reasons she can't place - though she doubts anyone else would be able to read it in his voice. But with the both of them up and fighting, nobody but Bluejam in front of them, Luffy behind them, they're not willing to run. They can't.

"Valentine," Ace mumbles to her, yanking her out of her tunnelvisioning, voice low and hurried, nudging her side, and she carefully listens even as she doesn't take her eyes off Bluejam's still standing, grinning form. "If things go badly- " Ace's voice breaks. "Duck out and take Luffy back to Dadan's. I'll keep Bluejam distra-"

"Shut up, just. Stop talking." She cuts in harshly, incredulously, and takes her eyes off Bluejam for one precious second to look at Ace's face, freckled and grim and facing forward, determined. "I'm never, _ever _leaving you guys behind. _Any _of you. That includes you, idiot. If you died, what the hell do you think I'd do with the rest of my life?"

Ace looks like he's barely breathing. "Valentine-"

"No. We'll talk about this later. Just- let's take care of this guy and get Luffy out of here, alright?"

Ace swallows. "Yeah."

She flicks her gaze forward.

Bluejam has being doing them the service of allowing (or ignoring) their byplay. How kind of him. "Ready to fight?" Bluejam hawks, spits on the ground, raises his sabre like he's raising a glass. "When I win, you'll join me."

"Over my dead body," Valentine spits out, perhaps too honestly, and then her and Ace are both lunging forward.

* * *

Valentine's on fire, hot with rage and bottom-of-the-barrel strength. _Never, _the thinks with each swing of her pipe, _I'll never let you get to them. Never._

Ace, similarly, is fighting with a lethal cocktail of focus and seriousness she's never seen from him before, gaze sharp and deadly as a blade. She knows he's fast, but she's never seen him like this: everything put on the line, eking out every last drop of strength to protect what's his, strikes vicious and crushing with not a single movement intentionally wasted.

She's never fought in tandem with _just _Ace like this, and at first it's a little strange, a little unwieldy, but they're of one kind _(protect Luffy, beat Bluejam, protect Luffy-) _and they slot into place fast enough that neither of them gets stabbed for the oversight, Bluejam moving stronger but slower (maybe because of the heavy tank on his chest, housing his dæmon? but he's not nearly slow enough to relax, almost faster than them, catching them off guard and slicing too fast to see with his sword, even with the damn leg she _knows _she grazed-).

Ace is faster than her, stronger and more well practiced, but even with the imbalance they _work, _Valentine viciously following up on his straight-on, powerful smashes with crippling shots to the knees, head, shoulder, groin. Ace's fighting style can seem too straightforward, sometimes, but when he has her to cover him, Bluejam doesn't have a single second to breathe or do anything other than dodge dodge dodge, doesn't have barely any chances to capitalize on that strength of his, because any possible gaps Ace leaves for counterstrikes are almost immediately covered by Valentine. She uses her sharp eye and knowledge and skill to match Ace's style; and, to his credit, Ace matches her too. He leaves room for her to move, lunges from the side or above so she can move from the opposite direction to split attention, creates opportunities for her to strike and cripple, and by the end of it-

Bluejam is on the ground with a badly broken wrist and what are sure to be multitudes of ugly bruises covering his thick torso (not anywhere the tank rests, and they know for a fact it's practically impenetrable, because their blows have glanced off the thick glass more than once, tougher and heavier by far than Bluejam's own loose, open shirt and thin pants). Both of their pipes are pressed to his wide bare (vulnerable) throat and his sabre is knocked out of his hand, sent spinning to the ground mere seconds before, a side smash from Valentine finally breaking his guard after Ace stole his attention by striking from above and diagonal. They've been at this dance for an hour, now, and abruptly, it-

Stops.

For a moment, the three of them just breathe, sweating and panting. They've been fighting for so long, how can they _stop, _and it's so fucking hard to get her brain out of battle mode, to convince her twitching fingers not to raise her pipe, smash down, maybe on the tank once and for all, erase the threat-

"Leave," Ace says, voice clear, freckled and bloody hand trembling on his pipe. "Leave and never return."

_(And why do you think they're alive to slander his name? _it's the song of a voice she's never heard, an echo that clamors through her head like the low groan of a creaking ship, the tang of salt, the crackling of a fire. _He let them go.)_

_...This is why, _she thinks to herself, trying desperately not to let her hands tremble, _I need people. Good people. Because I don't think that I… I don't think that I can be a good person. Not anymore. Not when I have to protect them._

_(Sabo, _the thinks, and her heart throbs, it _hurts. Sabo.)_

"Shame," says Bluejam, spitting out a fat gob of blood (she sees a hint of pale enamel through the thick red and that must be a tooth). "I think we could've come to an agreement."

"...What the hell d'you mean?" Ace sounds cautious, suspicious, breath taken out of him from a long hour, but they have the upper hand. What can he possibly offer them?

"Nobility," Bluejam coaxes, cajoling, voice syrupy and low. "Riches, power-"

"Knock him out," Valentine says sharply, not trusting herself to carry out the order.

"-I could give you a place to belong, boy. And after this, you're gonna need one. Not gonna be anything left of this place by tomorrow night-"

"Nothing left?" Obviously, Bluejam has no clue where they actually live - a misconception that Ace (if he's anything like her, if she knows him at _all_) probably wants to maintain - and Ace's pipe doesn't waver from its place at Bluejam's throat. "What do you mean?"

"There's gonna be a fire," Bluejam rumbles, eyes crazed. "And at the end, everyone with me will ascend to nobility- riches and power, more than you can imagine-"

"Fire?" Ace is mumbling, attention drifting, eyes hazing. "But _why?_ What do you have to g-"

Bluejam twitches or lunges and Valentine brings her pipe down on his temple with a sharp _crack._

It's a glancing blow - nowhere near the straight-on face smash she was aiming for as Bluejam fruitlessly tries to jerk out of its path - but it gets the job done and Bluejam drops like a stone, thumping heavily to the ground. Ace, takes a quick, involuntary step back.

There's a beat of silence.

"Luffy," Valentine rasps out, priorities rapidly reorienting, one-word explanation enough as she turns to stride towards his downed form on the ground. She pushes past the quiet, and she won't look at Ace, _can't_ see the expression on his face-

_"No, _what- what the hell?" She's forced to look at him as he grabs her shoulder, forcibly turns her around, and his expression is unmoored (grey eyes sharp and freckled face grungy with dirt and blood, mouth still stuck in a half-snarl like it doesn't know another way to be) but his grip is bruisingly tight, almost desperate. "You killed Porchemy?"

Behind his question is a bigger question: the _why, _because Ace heard her threatening (boasting to) Bluejam about Porchemy's death. He saw her desperate and snarling and half-dead as she fought for the last _hour, _saw her bring her pipe down on the prone Bluejam's head when he may not have been moving at all, and he's seeing her like this, now, stricken and lost-

"Yes." She looks him in the eyes, won't flinch, even when Ace does. Not away from her, thank god, she thinks that would put a big fucking crack in the stone cold persona she's been projecting. But his face twitches in- something. The rearranging of perception, maybe.

"...Okay," he says, hands falling from her shoulders, expression notching down in sheer conviction as it relaxes, his shoulders releasing their tension by a fraction, and she breathes out slow, controlled. It's almost worse that he doesn't press her, that he's giving her space and not- not _judging _her for being the first to make a kill. She doesn't- she doesn't deserve this-

"Let's just get Luffy and get the hell out of here," Ace says, and as she snaps back to the present she sees his expression is distant. And fuck, this isn't even over, there's _Sabo-_

Not the time. Later.

"Yeah," she says, echoing their interaction earlier but in reverse, and in one mind, they turn to Luffy.

He's undeniably unconscious, still, a distance away, but as they pace rapidly closer and more of him comes into view, she realizes that he's (and the relief is _immense, _crushing and liberating all at once) not really all that hurt.

She kneels in the dirt at his side and sees that he has a deep slice on his bicep - explaining the blood she saw earlier, in her split-second absorption of the scene - but despite his arm being painted red it's not as bad as she'd feared, and it's nowhere near the worst she's seen him get, not by far. His eyes are closed, curled with knees tucked up around rabbit-form Ran (she thinks back to a white hare with black tipped ears and her heart lurches), his expression is far removed from his usual during sleep, face dirty and exhausted.

Luffy doesn't look _troubled,_ exactly, but it's not the lackadaisical snoozing she's come to expect from him, slackjawed and drooling and murmuring his way through dreamland. His eyebrows are lightly furrowed, mouth closed, and - perhaps most importantly - he's totally, completely silent.

"What happened?" she asks carefully, reaching out without thinking to brush some of Luffy's hair away from his forehead. Her fingertips skim his skin, and his temperature is perfectly normal, no different than usual.

Ace is still beside her, gazing at Luffy, wearing an expression she can't see from the shadowed angle of his face. She gives him a few precious seconds (he deserves all the time in the world, but they don't have that) to pull on the memories, shuffle them into the picture he wants to tell.

"Earlier," Ace finally rasps, popping the quiet from where he's kneeling beside her. "There was this- I don't know. It was when you were being- when Porchemy covered your mouth." She nods tightly in acknowledgment. "Something happened. I don't know what. I couldn't move, I didn't _do _anything, but everyone just sort of…" he gestures, frustrated, at the open air. "Fell. Except for everyone _important. _Porchemy was still standing. And Bluejam." Ace laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I was so _desperate."_

There's things raw and unsaid in the admittance, but he quickly reels it in, reorients, expression firming, even in the tiny space of observation a split second of glancing over gives her. She focuses her eyes on Luffy again.

"But in the end, it made things even worse." His tone is bleak. "The dæmons holding Aurelia and the people holding me - and Luffy - fell, but so did _Ran."_ It takes her a second to parse the name coming out of his mouth - Ran, Luffy's dæmon - but a flood of understanding rushes through her, and she inhales sharply. "Yeah. She just- made this _sound, _shifted, and dropped. Luffy went right down after her, and then Porchemy said he was taking you away." Ace's voice is thick with helplessness. "I tried to stop him, but Bluejam wouldn't let me get past, and then he tried to get to Luffy, too… Aurelia was so tired. She's always silent, you know, but this was-" Ace shakes his head. "She's a mouse in my pocket right now."

There's a beat of silence, and Valentine stays quiet, mind whirring and gears turning too loudly to hear. "And then I attacked him," Ace says with an air of finality, noticeably skipping what must be a cascade of rationale, experiences, and likely panicked/solo decision making. "You were gone for a while, but you came back."

(There are multitudes contained within that single sentence. _You came back.)_

"...And then were here for the rest of it," Ace finishes, shifting restlessly. She can't help but notice the hand he has in his pocket.

And her heart is beating in her throat, sweat prickling at the nape of her neck, bile rising again as she creates and discards things to say faster than she can consider them. Because- because-

She knows what this is.

She- it so, _so _rarely comes into play. Knowing things she has no way of knowing. But she _knows, _here, and there's no possible way for her to have found out. Out of all the dull and muddied memories, sensations and flashes of feeling and color, she acutely recalls this.

Does she tell him?

(Ace sighs.

It's not meant to be heard, not meant to be noticed, he _never _lets any of them see him weak, but it's a tiny, defeated thing, and her fingers twitch on Luffy's brow. She's never heard Ace like that, so shaken, so _small, _and-

How could she _not_ tell him?)

All her fears get forcibly shoved to the _not important _zone in her mind, the _deal with this later, think of the people important to you right the fuck now _zone. "I think I know what you did," she says, expression blank, so, so careful, still looking at Luffy's unconscious form.

She feels his attention shift to her, almost a tangible weight.

"I mean- I'm almost sure. I just don't know why it affected Luffy."

Truth.

"What? How- how do you know? Do you have it too?" there's a damning hint of hope (so rare for him) as he peers over at her, eyes wide, and that's the worst part of it. Her heart clenches.

"No," she says, watches his expression subtly fall.

"Then how do you know?"

"I read about it," she says.

_Truth._

Ace laughs, and it's the truest she's heard from him since this whole day went to shit, rough but entirely honest. "Hell, _I've_ gotta start reading if you get to knowing 'bout things like that. You and Sabo-"

The reminder is grim.

Ace cuts himself off, jaw clenching, silent. Valentine isn't much better, the reflexive sting of tears rising familiar in her eyes, but she stifles it.

(She shoves the issue of Conqueror's Haki aside for later.)

"We'll get him back," she repeats, a mantra. The more she says it, the truer it'll be.

Ace laughs again but it's nothing like the last one. It's the laugh of a boy peering into an endless, irreplaceable chasm. "Yeah fucking right. You didn't even _see _who took him. His _chichi-ue _and a whole cartload of gas-mask Hightown soldiers."

"Doesn't matter. We'll get him back."

"Stop _lying," _Ace hisses, except by the end it's more of a choked scream. He's standing, now, Valentine peering up at him, surprised, from where she's kneeling by Luffy.

"Stop lying," Ace repeats, quieter but not softer, wild expression fading into something less close-to-the-surface as his clenched fists release. "He's gone and he's not coming back. If he even _wants _to, he'll come himself."

Valentine feels her mouth twist. Her words are raw as they tear themselves from her throat. "What if he can't?"

"Sabo can do anything if he puts his mind to it." Ace's arms are crossed, conviction childish and absolute, and for all the things he's been through, all the things he's done, _will _do, Ace really is eleven years old, ignorant of so many of the world's vast unkindnesses. "He snuck past those damn nobles once. And anyways…" Ace's voice shifts into something more bitter, lower, as he turns away. Distant. "What makes you think he even wants to come back?"

"Of course he does." Valentine's tone brooks no argument. "Sabo doesn't give a damn about all that hightown stuff. They had to take him by force."

But she doesn't actually know about that for sure - didn't see it happen - and Ace gazes at her pityingly, confirms her ignorance as her heart sinks. From the look in his eyes, she can't tell if he's sorrier for her, for Sabo, or for all of them. "They didn't. He walked away with them of his own free will."

The roar of denial is as fierce as it is instinctual. "Yeah fucking right," she says, echoing her thoughts, for once, with absolute, brutal honesty. Ace blinks. "They probably blackmailed him or something. If everything Sabo's said is true, you can't start to trust a noble any farther than you could throw one."

"What does he even _have_ for them to blackmail him about?"

The answer is obvious. "Us."

For the split second Ace makes eye contact with her, she can see the doubt painting his brow.

Then he looks away and it's gone. "Come on. One of our dæmons is gonna have to get big so they can carry Ran back."

(Gazing at his expression, the curve of his frown and the slant of his eyebrows, the angry dimple carved into his face (moving on from any possibility), _denial, _she quietly accepts that she'll be getting Sabo back herself.)

She briskly inhales, exhales, and actually considers for a moment what he's said aloud. "Uh." She puts a hand over her chest, and- yup. Ilirya is still very immobile in her shirt. "I don't think that's gonna happen for me."

"...Shit." She glances over as Ace spits the curse out, his hands - again - buried in his pockets. "Aurelia isn't responding. _Dammit."_

But for Valentine, knelt by Luffy's side, focus turned to the boy in front of her, the core of her attention has shifted.

She isn't listening to him anymore.

Valentine cradles the side of Luffy's face, pushing dark strands of hair back delicately, gentle as touching spun glass. A treatment that Luffy doesn't need, maybe, but that he certainly deserves.

"Come on, love," she whispers, tender, and she hears Ace's breath hitch as her hand drifts down she strokes over the soft fur of Ran's side, impossibly gently.

"What are you _doing," _Ace whispers harshly, and he sounds - if Ace could every truly sound the word - scandalized. Taken aback.

What she's doing is _technically _taboo.

But that doesn't mean people don't do it.

(See, the thing is-

This isn't the first time she's touched Ran.)

"Wake up, Ran," she murmurs softly, stroking along the velvety nose, the soft spot just between the ears, the sensation both entirely foreign and utterly familiar, something gold fluttering in her throat, smaller and fainter than a moth. "It's safe. You can wake up now."

Luffy's nose twitches.

And then, all at once, he's _awake._

"Ace!" Luffy yelps, sitting bolt upright (and only her quick reflexes have her jerking back to avoid what would have been a very painful headbutt to the nose), sending Ran tumbling with an indignant, sleepy squeak. "Sabo! Val! What's-" he trails off, blinking at Valentine's face. "What's…"

He blinks at her.

"You're alive!" he shrieks, then flings himself at her, all limbs like an octopus.

"Luffy- _ow," _she hisses, tenderness faded from her voice like morning dew at the sight of the sun, and the sensation of him pressing down on her aches and bruises isn't a pleasant one.

But he pulls back just as quick (leaving her oddly bereft), rockets to his feet, and gives Ace the same treatment.

Ace is so out of sorts that he _lets _Luffy hug him, and seconds later, his arms are coming up to wrap around the smaller boy, fierce and desperate. And for a moment, all that fills the air is that relief - Ace and Valentine completely, utterly on the same page - and the familiar sound of Luffy's chatter, happiness even brighter at Ace hugging him back, the voice that's undeniably _Luffy _ringing through the cold, Gray Terminal air.

And then-

Luffy's frowning, peering around anxiously, and her heart sinks.

"Where's Sabo?"

* * *

Ace carries Luffy back to Dadan's.

Half because he won his and Valentine's nonverbal argument (held entirely through microexpressions and pointed eye-contact) and half because she thinks he needs it more than her. The reassuring weight of Luffy on your back is not something to be underestimated, but this time, she's not entirely sure she deserves it. So.

Sabo's absence weighs heavy on them. Luffy's immediate resistance to the thought that Sabo might be gone for good _(no, Sabo will come back, I know it!) _hasn't _subsided, _exactly, but it's calmed into a somewhat sullen tenacity in the face of Ace's mulish, overbearing stubbornness. Ran's a stag beetle on Luffy's shoulder, and Ace (like her) is probably so glad to see her moving and reacting that he doesn't even put up much of a fuss, just says _it is what it is, Luffy, _countenance tired, eyes leagues more exhausted than he's letting on.

Valentine doesn't say anything as they trace their way through their well-worn forest paths, trudging back to Dadan's (and more importantly, Magra, Dadan's medic) at the fastest pace their damaged selves can muster. What's left for her to say?

* * *

The next bit of everything is something of a blur.

Valentine expects to break down as soon as they get somewhere safe. But she doesn't. She can't cry, can't even summon the tears now, eyes dry and mind hazy. She can hardly pay attention as the bandits fuss over them (concern fostered over the year like a tiny sprout, grown bright and green), as they wash up and Magra bandages their wounds, as Ace tells the harsh truth of it, cutting sharp through the maelstrom of people and dæmons around them: _Sabo's gone._

They sleep upstairs, where their old bedroom has been turned into a storeroom and the bandits shove boxes of patterned pants and polearms out of the way to clear a space. She's so- so _tired, _Luffy curled up on her front as she lies on her back (he's still small enough to do this, only seven), and when Ace tries to get as much distance as he can - barely a foot away, back against the boxes, but the meaning is clear - her response is as involuntary as it is strong. "Hell no," she rasps, the acrid taste of vomit long cleaned out of her mouth, replaced with mint, but it's funny, she thinks she can still taste it. "Ace."

Just his name will do. And - as he makes eye-contact with her across the dim foot of floorspace, clean from the blood and the dirt and plastered with white bandages - she thinks that even free of dirt and blood, he doesn't look at all different than how he looked in the Gray Terminal. Bereft.

He grunts noncommittally in response, and it sparks irritation at the fact that she'll have to spell it out after all. "Ace. Get over here."

"Get the crybaby to stop crying, then." His tone is sullen, eyes averted to avoid looking at the still-weeping Luffy on her shirt. Irritation sparks brighter.

"You know I won't," she reminds him, sharply, arms wrapping around Luffy tighter. He hiccups, whimpers and sobs, and of course he's getting snot and drool and saltwater all over her shirt, but Sabo's _gone. _"Luffy needs some comfort. There's nothing wrong with that."

_Nothing wrong with wanting that, _she adds, silently, intending the implication to reach further. By the stiffening of his shoulders, Ace understands what she means.

She sees him opening his mouth, brow furrowed but the rest of his face impossible to read in the dark, prepared to argue-

"Please," she hears herself say, and is that really her? Her voice is almost unrecognizable. "Come over here. We need this."

_I need this._

There's a pause in which her panic roars over her - _what if he leaves, what if he's been tolerating me and this is the point of no return, what if this is when he finally goes_ \- but her tension breaks from her in a great, rushing exhale as Ace scoots closer on his side, closing the distance between her and him on the blanket covered floor.

"Better?" Ace asks, but he sounds tired, weary. His arm comes around to cover Luffy (over her stomach), settling closer until his front is pressed against her side and his face is buried in the free part of her shoulder. It's the closest - most honest - he's ever held onto her, but more importantly, it's the most vulnerable he's ever let her see him, arm gentle around Luffy and exhalations soft against her skin. She can't see his face anymore (so he still has plausible deniability), but seeing as that's only true because he's hiding it against _her, _well. The set of his shoulders is telling her so much more than he'd ever say aloud.

She doesn't say anything. Just lets Luffy's tears be swallowed up by the dark and the clean fabric of her shirt, tucks her arm around Ace to pull the warm, reassuring weight of someone else shouldering the burden closer.

—

—

—

**Notes:**

So. Thoughts? :,D

You might've noticed this chapter was shorter than usual. I had more written (trying to push it to that nebulous 10k mark), but the end here was too good of a stopping point. Dragging it on past that felt like was trying to cram too much in.

And wow. Lots of plot in this one, huh? It was hard to write, seeing as it was mostly just one long scene for the whole thing. I really do love character dynamics above all else, and angst is neither my favorite nor my forte, but I feel satisfied with this chapter nonetheless.

Then again, I suppose it's not up to me to decide that. :p

Thank you to all you wonderful commenters. This chapter is dedicated to you, for keeping me going.

(And, if you wanna read up some more on dæmons, I'd highly recommend checking the wiki page! It's super informative.

...I'd link y'all, but is eating my links. :T)


	5. Chapter 5: Hand

She wakes up in the morning, and for a moment, she's half-asleep, befuddled and confused.

_Where…? Oh._

It all comes rushing back to her. A film reel worth of images flickers through her head, the whole nightmarish picture of them baldly true, terrible, unignorable.

And still, she doesn't cry.

Ace and Luffy have shifted during the night. Now, she's blinking up blearily at the worn wooden ceiling (so unfamiliar, after just a few months), bright with sunlight coming through the window, blankets strewn every which way (but her pillow - thankfully - still under her head). She's on her back, but her arms are entirely asleep; probably, she thinks, due to the boys still snoring away on them.

She really thinks she can't move. Luffy's cuddles (and hugs) will always be difficult to escape (the elastic arms give him too many failsafes), but hell's bells, Ace is holding onto her _very _tightly. His head is pillowed on her bicep, drooling away on her shoulder as his arms wrap tight around her torso; even _closer _than he was in the haze of falling asleep, if she remembers correctly.

His legs hook over hers (same as Luffy's, if a tad less elastic), not a whisper of space between the three of them, and god, she feels so _warm._ They aren't entirely covered with the blankets - Luffy tends to kick them off during the night, restless, clingy sleeper as he is - but all three of them together generate more than enough heat to ward off the winter chill.

_…Would be warmer with four._

The thought is tinged bitter and bereft with its immediacy, as it strikes her, and as it seeps into her, melancholy, she quickly stifles all her emotions before they can leak into a sigh.

As if roused by her dark thoughts, Ace shifts, yawning sleepily into her neck and pillowing his cheek more firmly on her shoulder with a sigh. And at that, Luffy - ever the reactive sleeper - repositions, and (with the most accurate aim he's had to date) punches Ace squarely in the nose.

Ace rears back with a startled squawk (the indignant, enraged betrayal of a cat whose tail has been trodden on), and after that, like most mornings, things get very loud.

* * *

Her plan solidifies over breakfast. Farfetched and probably impossible though it is, she doesn't see any other options. However-

First things first.

Ace - tired, still, but armor reapplied overnight, the guise of normalcy painted over a house that's falling apart - agrees that they should move the treasure fund. Probably should have moved it a while ago, actually, given how damn big it's getting (and additionally, due to the fact that more than a few Gray Terminal inhabitants - mostly the Bluejam Pirates, not that there's much left of them now - know about it, half as infamous as ASLV themselves have grown, and don't think about the possibility of 'ASLV' changing, don't think about it don't-). Even if the fire that Bluejam rambled on about isn't gonna happen - since they left Bluejam with a broken wrist and bleeding head, unconscious on the dirt in the middle of the Gray Terminal with his knocked-out crew strewn around him, and even if Luffy didn't consider it, _they_ of course knew what would almost definitely follow their departure - they have the ability and power, now, to hide the culmination of their life's work in a much taller tree. And there's no point in keeping it near the terminal. There's nothing left for them there, not anymore.

Nothing.

They move the treasure to their hideout with burlap sacks pilfered from the same storeroom they slept in. (They leave it guarded by traps, _Sabo's _traps, and who will renew them when they're gone?) They'll make another treasure tree later, when their wounds have healed, when they find the time to carve a new compartment out of solid, leafy boughs. When they have all the time in the world.

(Luffy is pleading with Ace, begging him to _go back for Sabo, please, Ace, he's our brother!_

Valentine notices Ace's patience dwindling, dipping sharply when Luffy uses that word - _brother - _but she categorizes it absently, brain mired in other things, faraway and burning like a star.)

* * *

They're on the hunt. Everything is normal. Everything is fine.

(They run through the trees, easy as breathing, dæmons flitting overhead, but Valentine knows that they all feel the absence keenly. Has there been a single day, since she met them, that she hasn't spent with these boys? She doesn't think so.

Sabo. _Sabo._

She misses him sharply, fiercely, like burning.

She will get him back.)

"But Ace, Sabo is our _brother, _we can't leave him behind! We need to go and get him, Ace, _please-"_

"Shut _up, _Luffy!"

Ace's expression is wild, almost feral as he whirls around, and Valentine transitions from distant thoughts and planning to being _there _so fast she almost gets whiplash, doesn't waste the time to think before she reaches, yanks Luffy back and shoves him behind her. She kills their momentum in an instant, digging her heels into the ground.

"Don't," Valentine says, staring straight at Ace as he starts forward, her voice low and terrible, and clarity snaps back into his eyes.

He looks first to his rising hands - like they've betrayed him - then at Luffy - too slow at reacting, still not having moved out from behind Valentine's arm, startled - and then, finally, to Valentine.

Whatever expression he sees on her face, it makes him flinch.

"Come on," Ace mutters, turning around again to keep walking forward. His voice is low, Aurelia shifting to something small and tucking herself into his sleeve, and he walks ahead, shoulders hunched like the world is pressing down on them. (In so many ways, it is.)

Luffy mutely ducks out from behind her arm to trail after him. Belatedly, she lets it fall, and for a single moment, Valentine tells herself to breathe in, breathe out. She closes her eyes.

* * *

Ace suggests going back to Makino's.

"No," Valentine says clearly, gnawing on the haunch of deer she has in her hand, and it's the first thing she's actually said aloud all day other than _don't._ (At Ace's side, Aurelia is ostentatiously not in doe form. She's not a mouse, anymore, though, entirely back to normal and wearing the form of an ocelot as she drapes herself over the riverside's muddy ground, but then again, she didn't talk in the first place, did she? Not like Ilirya.)

Valentine tries to keep her awful thoughts off her face.

"No?" Ace sounds as if his asking had been mere formality and her answer was supposed to be a foregone conclusion: like he hadn't even considered she'd utter the word 'no.'

"I have something to do in the terminal," she says honestly, polishing off the meat in her hand and tossing the clean bone into the fire.

Ace's eyes narrow.

* * *

(Ilirya's not talking.

He'll shift to anything she asks him to (which bodes well for the plan taking firm root and blooming in her head), but he's not talking.

Just like Aurelia.

This, just like her lack of tears, she pushes aside. _Later. Later.)_

* * *

In the end, Luffy is integral to her plans.

Who else would keep Ace distracted?

The tenryūbito are visiting in three days, and between all the muddled facts and figures in her head, _this _she remembers clearly, sees on the newspaper left on Dadan's coffee table, a careless confirmation. She needs to get to him before the visit, before the fire-

Well. Just the one fire. The fire in the Gray Terminal won't be happening anyways, considering how they put Bluejam entirely out of business just a day before, so she can't use it as a point of reference.

(It's a forgone conclusion, but to be entirely frank: who can carry boxes of flammable oil with a broken wrist and a busted head? Plus, he said he'd be executing his whole crew at his nearest available convenience, which leaves nobody to do the grunt work for him.

That is, if he's not dead already, picked off by the opportunistic scavengers that rove the Gray Terminal. Throat slit, maybe, a better death than he deserves, but a final one, at least.

Such a shame.)

She keeps her cruel thoughts to herself, coaxes the next step of the plan into motion. This, she thinks, will be the easiest part.

* * *

It makes her feel extraordinarily guilty, how easy it is to manipulate Luffy into distracting Ace.

Not guilty enough to stop.

She wishes to god she could just _tell _him, give Luffy the hope and reassurance he so desperately wants (and deserves), but she doesn't know if the entire thing will work out (if she'll even come back), and as much as she loves that boy, she's perfectly aware that he can't keep his mouth shut for anything. Luffy would blurt out the truth - maybe not immediately, but eventually - and then Ace would try to stop her, convince her, or - the worst possible scenario - come after her once she's already gone, and that would ruin the delicate balance of events she prays to god will come to pass. No plan survives contact with the enemy, she knows (she's heard it _somewhere_ before), but this plan doesn't demand perfection. Just a quick wit, some forethought, and several important factors.

Speaking of important factors. There's Dogra, exiting Dadan's house now.

Valentine slips smoothly off the low bough of one of the smaller baby oaks surrounding Dadan's clearing, lands easily on the ground, and paces over to him, a convincing smile painted on her face. _Showtime._

* * *

Ace and Luffy are seeing how many snakes they can kill in the jungle, making a whole competition of it, and she knows Ace is offbalance and more than slightly fucked up from this but she trusts him with Luffy's life at the very least, even with the buried deep anger and frustration that Sabo's kidnapping must be rousing.

_(Especially after what happened before. The guilt will keep him in line.)_

She'd stoked Luffy's enthusiasm, hyped him up to the point of unstoppable excitement, and obviously, Ace had suspected her of _something,_ he's not blind (far more perceptive than she gives him credit for, sometimes), but he couldn't stop her and he wouldn't suspect her of using the opportunity to do something so drastic.

At least, she was counting on the fact that he wouldn't expect it.

For all Ace knows, she's trying to get Luffy fizzing with energy like a soda bottle in order to distract him - not too far off the mark, actually - so she can keep his focus off Sabo's absence, and she _knows_ Ace thinks she wants some distance from the two of them, too, can read it in the self-blaming set of his shoulders and the way he avoids her eyes, looking at the trees, the beasts, the path, anything but her. Ilirya hasn't started speaking again, something that both he _and _Luffy have noticed, and while they're both acknowledging it in different ways (Luffy brashly, Ace with a fraction more tact), Ace has always been very respectful of her rare (but necessary) need for space. That, and he's a person with a strong tendency to blame himself.

She's taking advantage of that.

Luffy _hasn't_ been (typically keen on giving her alone time, that is, or blaming himself), but then again, he's also easily distracted by the suggestion of a snake-killing competition between him and Ace, so. Can't keep seven-year-old boy (let alone a seven-year-old _Luffy) _on track for long.

That squared away, she returns to the house, tossing a casual _see you later _over her shoulder with a wave, knowing the bare bones of Dogra's schedule and hoping to catch him before he leaves for his mid-afternoon forage for mushrooms and berries. And luck is, for once, on her side, because she does.

* * *

She has pipe in hand, a small satchel full of treasure from the treasure fund (she's certain Ace and Luffy will be more than okay with the thievery if this whole thing works out) tucked under her shirt, and she's squeaky clean from a hurried mid-afternoon bath. The only bandages she still has on are the ones that remain unseen under her clothes - for posterity - and she thanks her lucky stars that it's winter, or else she'd be wearing lighter seasonal shorts and a tank top right now, and that'd mean she'd have to improvise. Thankfully, the fading cold weather provides her with plenty of excuses for long sleeves.

If all goes well, she'll be back sometime tomorrow.

Dogra shows her his bolthole into the Goa kingdom, a tunnel dug under the wall and known - to Dogra's knowledge - only to himself. His voice is trembling (a sharp contrast to his blue-tongued skink daemon, motionless and sunning itself on his hat) as he tells her, shows her how to spot it and shift the landmark cover of a truly massive mound of garbage out of the way, because Dogra (for how little she's known him, spoken to him) clearly cares for Sabo deeply. When she told him what this was for - _I'm getting Sabo back - _he didn't question her, all the subtly desperate, hopeful facets to the determination on her face. He looked at her warily, yes, but didn't dare try to stop her.

He might even be hoping she'll succeed.

* * *

Edge Town is a familiar sight.

The gangs don't faze her (take little to no notice of her, anyways, the way she looks now), nor does the trash and narrow, labyrinthine alleyways. Valentine has been here often enough that she knows the territories and haunts of each gang patrol, so she knows exactly how to stay out of the way of the worst of them, smoothly ducking into alleys and roads so thin they might've been gouged out of the earth, cracks in Goa's shining, perfect image.

She has allies here, as well - not just enemies - but she doesn't want to be spotted. Better to make an entirely clean getaway once it's all over and done.

(Most people in Edge Town are easily bought out. With her plans being long-term as they are - even if people are unlikely to betray her for fear of invoking ASLV's wrath - she won't risk it.)

She's well known to everyone in the fringes, but completely alone and with her hair tucked under a spare newsboy cap borrowed from the storeroom, she could be anyone or no one. With Ace and Sabo and Luffy, she's recognizable enough to send people running in panic (fear?), but without them, she's far less conspicuous.

_(Which is convenient,_ she realizes. If you're only known within the context of a group, then it starts to provide untapped opportunities for inconspicuity while going solo.)

And, believe it or not, there's plenty of overlookable street rat kids that roam Edge Town and the Gray Terminal. They're nowhere near as strong as Ace, Sabo, herself, or even Luffy; just normal kids, all of them (or as normal as you can be in this world, anyways), defenseless as any kid usually is, and with her hair hidden and pipe discreetly tucked under the short cloak she's wearing (an article courtesy of her destination, actually), she looks like she could be any one of them. If a bit clean, but that can't be helped.

Slipping from alleyway to alleyway, she fits right in.

* * *

She finds the shop she's looking for.

She pushes the door open - no tinkling bell to announce her arrival, this _is_ Edge Town after all - and as she lets it close behind her, takes in the racks of clothing, all used or stolen or secondhand, mostly shrouded in dim light. A few beams of sunlight wiggle through the cracks on the painted-over windows - blacked out for security reasons, not that she can blame the owner - and illuminate the motes of dust floating lazily through the air, the cheap wooden floors and the peeling wallpaper. Not a luxurious place, by any means, but Valentine of all people knows the value of a deceptive appearance.

"Hello, Simmons," Valentine greets formally, approaching the counter at a leisurely pace. "Lovely afternoon."

A pearl-spotted owlet dæmon is perched on the cash register, lamplike yellow eyes reflecting all the calculating shrewdness apparent in her human counterpart (if you look past the anxiety, that is), and Simmons himself - currently scrawling in the ledgers, if her quick glance beyond the counter is informs her correctly - nods sharply in her direction. "Hello, Valentine. Come for another dress?"

"Yes," she admits, Ilirya curling around her wrist, the poisonous yellow crest and scales of an eyelash viper looking like mustard in the dim light, patches struck gold by the shafts of sunlight. Like an expensive, deadly bracelet. "But something more, this time," she murmurs, offhandedly observing the already-calculating air apparent in Simmon's fractionally narrowed eyes, the minute tapping of the nib of his quill on the desk. Perfectly within expectations, but that's not a bad thing. Better the devil you know, after all.

"What sort? I have some special pieces in the back."

Implied is that he's acquired these pieces with her in mind.

(She _is_ his most loyal customer.)

Valentine smiles at him serenely, Ilirya's diamond head rising from her wrist like a warning, yellow scales slick and deceptively lethal. She takes no joy in how his owlet's feathers puff, unmistakeable, clicking her beak in what Valentine knows to be a nervous tell.

There's no room for negotiation in her voice when she speaks. "I need you to get me the dress of a high noble."

* * *

Simmons is a very convenient contact to have.

She knows that his tightlipped manner isn't entirely due to how much money she pours into his business, for one. There's plenty of clothing shops out there in Edge Town - some better than this one - but Valentine has a predilection towards brand loyalty. Discovering that Simmons was more than a simple shopkeeper after her first purchase had only cemented that initial, serendipitous choosing, kept her coming back again and again to buy apparel (kerchiefs for Makino, new shirts for the boys, more dresses) that she didn't explicitly need. She and Simmons - despite all appearances - get along, and that reflects itself in their flourishing business relationship.

It's lucky that his shop was the one she chose, fatefully, for the purchase of her first dine'n'dash dress.

* * *

He deals in information.

It's a difficult line to walk in Edge Town (especially for someone who can't defend themselves, no combat prowess whatsoever, nothing but their words and their wits), but Simmons walks it with ease. It helps that the Bluejam Pirates (previously the biggest gang influence in Goa) can't (couldn't?) reach very far here, and that within Edge Town itself, ASLV remains undisputed at the top. (And will continue to do so.)

Simmons is (subtly) under her protection, cemented because the last time someone trashed his shop, she tracked the Sharp Fang gang member grunt down and beat the shit out of him. (That's probably the one thing that gave her most of the points on her punch card. Metaphorical punch card. Simmons doesn't really give discounts.)

(She remembers the shrieking of his owlet as she dashed out the door, the thrill of the chase rising in her breast as Ilirya dashed along beside her-)

This cumulation of exchanges, in the end, is the only reason Simmons is letting her stay in his back storeroom overnight.

* * *

Simmons, of course, knows about the would-be fire.

"Heard about it a few weeks ago," he mumbles around a cigarette, rifling through a crate of frilly shirts. His own wear is formal - brown vest over white buttondown and dark slacks, well-worn dress shoes - but it's nowhere near the garishly ostentatious fashions of his merchandise. It suits him and his dæmon both, the browns and creams.

She asks why he hasn't let her know about it before now.

"Would'a said something if you swung by. Guess you've been busy."

He's not wrong.

She sighs, trying to exhale some of her tension. "That makes sense." Simmons doesn't have any runners or underlings, nobody to take any of the weight of his business off of him. He doesn't trust anybody else to do it right.

That sort of paranoia is a little outside her purview, but it's understandable. Even if it makes _her _paranoid for his betrayal. "Well, it doesn't matter anyways," she says, breaking the comfortable silence. "The Bluejam pirates are done."

His face half turns towards her, cigarette dangling from his lips, and he arches a single, incredulous brow.

* * *

Everything is finally in order. All she needs to do is exist in this bubble of plans and uncertainty until tomorrow.

_The waiting is the worst part, _she thinks to herself, tension fractionally relaxing out of her shoulders with a sigh. The sun has long since set, her belly filled with the same simple fare that Simmons had for dinner (the size of it nowhere near the sheer mass of food that comprises her usual meals, but she can survive on exceedingly little if need-be), and she considers going out for a roam, just to see if Sabo managed to sneak out from his family's and save her some of the work. She glances out the cracks in the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the evening sky.

…Sundown has already passed. Why is there light?

"Simmons," she says sharply, and his owl shrieks.

* * *

The world outside is full of smoke.

_The fire won't come over the wall, _she thinks to herself numbly, staring up, and up, and _up _at the towering column of smoke lighting up the evening sky. She hears the door slam shut behind her as Simmons comes out as well, feels his presence behind her as he too gazes up, and up, and up.

"I guess your intel was wrong," he says, and she hears the flick of a lighter and smells the burning trail of cigarette smoke as he lights it.

"It can't be wrong," she breathes, still stuck in that dreamy place inbetween horror and disbelief. "I beat Bluejam _myself. _I smashed him in the head with my pipe, I _broke his wrist, _there's no way he started this fire, his crew should be _dead-"_

She distantly realizes she's hyperventilating when she feels the coiling squeeze of scales around her wrist and forearm - Ilirya, wearing the red and yellow and warning black of a coral snake - bringing her back to her body, shutting her mouth with a click. The world around her pops and _sings, _the clamor of voices (young and old and all terrified) rising above the distant roaring of a fire bigger than any blaze she's ever seen, unlike anything she's ever felt. It roars and consumes, belches smoke, and the unique smell of burning trash reaches even _this _far, far beyond the boundaries of the wall. Burning trash and burning bodies.

Simmons, still smoking, blessedly says nothing. He doesn't reach out to her shoulder to offer comfort, doesn't say a word, and terribly, desperately, she's glad. She wouldn't be able to take it without shattering.

"The fire won't come over the wall," she says, her own voice muffled in her ears, almost entirely sure she's right. She directs the words towards Simmons, over her shoulder, but doesn't turn around, unable to tear her eyes off of the blaze. Already, it's so _high- _"I'll be back tonight. My plan for tomorrow is the same. If I don't come back, scratch my order, and I'll compensate you later."

Without another word, she dashes towards the wall. Towards the fire.

* * *

_Ace and Luffy should be fine. There's no reason for them to be in the terminal- they had their contest, we already moved the treasure fund-_

She's not going over the wall. What the hell would she do, wander around the blaze like a fool? No, if Luffy and Ace aren't there, she doesn't have time to spare worrying about the Gray Terminal's inhabitants. They might be saved, some of them at least, and that's more than enough to assuage her barest twinges of conscience, because she doesn't have the _time-_

(She feels Sabo. Out here, somewhere _close, _if she can just reach him-)

Valentine dashes through alleyways and side streets, fighting the tide of gangs and children and civilians fleeing inwards, closer to the rotten core of Goa. It takes her too much _time, _ducking beneath elbows flung to the side and panicked bodies that yell and scream and cry, hidden beneath her cap and cloak, and beyond the stifling clamor, the terrible feeling comes over her without prompting-

Abruptly, she exits the last alleyway.

The crushing crowd has long since faded around her. She doesn't know how much time has passed, but it's too much, and she's panting, coughing from smoke inhalation, Ilirya migrated from her forearm and wrist to her shirt (to avoid the touch of the sheer mass of _people.) _She sees-

She sees-

A massively tall man in a dark cloak walking towards the wall.

He's bridging the empty gulf between the fringes of buildings and the towering barrier of stone, putting one foot in front of the other; slowly, wreathed in ambient smoke and light, like he has all the time in the world. Beside him, almost larger than he is, walks a silverback gorilla; unfazed by the blazing flames just beyond the wall, on all fours, silvery white fur of its back glinting from the castoff light of the fire, the rest of its body pitch dark in the night. They look one and the same.

The feeling resolves itself into certainty.

"Dragon," she says, barely louder than a whisper.

The man in the cloak - nearly forty feet away - stills. His dæmon does the same.

Her attention narrows, discarding the guards and the small crowd at the closed main gate, the towering blaze and the smoke, because-

That massive gorilla is turning around. It doesn't flash its fangs, doesn't do anything other than _look, _eyes dark and intelligent, but her breath catches.

And then he's in front of her.

Her eyes jerk up to his face, shaded by the hood of the cloak. A crisscrossing pattern of red climbs up the left side of the figure's exposed skin, from jaw to hairline, past where the light touches, and she catches glimpses of a beaklike nose and a frown. This is-

"Dragon the Revolutionary," she whispers. Her hands are shaking, but she doesn't break her gaze, and she realizes with a shock that she's making _eye contact, _black eyes so unlike the kind and childish ones she knows staring back at her. These eyes demand a reason, demand a _why, _and she answers.

"You're Luffy's father," she says, utterly certain.

"...Yes," he says, voice deep and masculine. At his side, his dæmon breathes, pace steady and seemingly unaffected by the smoke. Neither of them move.

"And you saved Sabo," she says, heartbeat roaring in her ears, equally certain as before. His expression doesn't change.

"The noble boy?" At her mute nod, he raises a hand, pointing to the gates, to the guards.

"I delivered him to a safe place," Dragon says, and the sheer _command _in his voice makes her want to- "He was picked up by a bystander, likely relinquished to the police soon after."

_"Dammit." _It springs out of her, helpless, hapless of her surroundings and her company, fists clenching, and for a single second all she focuses on is drawing in her next breath. The smoke in the air, the yells and clamor, the hellish orange light, the heat-

"You know my son," Dragon says. It's not a question.

"Yes," she breathes, throat still choked from her failure. She was so _close-_

"Good," he says, a certainty she doesn't possess ringing through his voice. "You will do many things."

_Great, _she thinks, _or terrible?_

Whatever question she wears on her face, it must not matter, because Dragon the Revolutionary and his dæmon turn around.

They must leave, between one heartbeat and another, but she doesn't notice, stuck in her maelstrom of thoughts, in the desperate, pointless failure of being almost close enough.

* * *

She doesn't know how it happens, but she gets back to Simmons' shop.

She must've traced back through the labyrinth of alleyways, must've ducked into _The Golden Needle_ \- passing Simmons himself - and lain in the darkness of its back room, ignoring the noise and the light and the screams still audible outside the boundaries of the walls, the still-persisting smell of smoke, but she can't remember a single second of it.

Logically, almost getting Sabo tonight hasn't changed a thing in her plans- she didn't even factor this into the original, didn't consider the _fire, _so nothing has been lost - but it feels like she's lost everything.

_Almost, _she thinks numbly. _The worst word. In any language._

She could have Sabo with her. With her _right now. _If she hadn't discounted the _stupid fire-_

_Well, _she thinks tiredly, viciously, _whatever happened, Bluejam is dead. For good. He better be. If he isn't, I'll kill him myself._

It's cold comfort, but it carries her into the turmoil of her dreams. Wrapped around the silent form of Ilirya, curled beneath a blanket, she winks out of existence and fades into sleep.

* * *

When she wakes, in utter contrast to the morning before, she immediately knows where she is.

Wordlessly, she rises, discards the blanket. She ignores her aches and pains, hopes distantly that none of her wounds have reopened. As long as she doesn't bleed through the bandages, though, she doesn't suppose it matters.

Light is filtering through the back room window. Natural light, untouched by orange, and the sheer _normalcy _of it shakes something important inside her like a ragdoll, trying vainly to shred it.

She's not nearly fragile enough to be hurt by it, but she feels it regardless.

Mutely, she dresses, wipes the soot off her skin with a wet rag, smears perfume on her wrists and pulsepoint to hide the smell of smoke. She collars herself with gold and jewels, cuffs herself with the same, engages in a thousand other preparations, and only then, she thinks, she is ready.

—

—

—

—

Sabine startles at the knock.

_So soon after? _she muses, pushing off the plush loveseat and hurrying out of the tearoom, arriving with a click of heels at the cherry stained double doors. She impatiently gestures at the servants to open their main gate, pasting her best smile onto her face, plucking at the lace on her sleeves. _What trouble could my troublesome son have possibly caused? He's locked up now, I can just pretend he's been that way for a few days, no trouble to be found-_

The grand double doors open inward, letting in the light, and with it, the sight of-

Oh. It's not a scandalized neighbor standing on her doorstep. It's a little noble girl.

The girl is wearing a dress and accenting feathers befitting the season and the fashion, face painted with the delicate tones and colors suitable to a girl not yet come of age. She looks rich. And in high standing.

Sabine selfconsciously smooths her bejeweled fingers - emeralds, pah, nothing compared to the _diamonds _glittering at the girl's wrists and neck - over her frock. It's seasonal, yes, but a trendier set just came out a few days ago-

"Do you need something?" Sabine says, attempting pleasantness. This girl, whoever she is, obviously comes from a richer family - if not definitively one with greater status than Sabine's own, then probably so - which means she must be pandered to and satisfied.

"Yes," the girl says in a high, cold voice. Her brown eyes (unusual for a noble, but common in the more obscure families- does that mean she's of less status than anticipated?) are nearly flat with boredom, but her hair is long and sleek, adorned with a headband accented with golden feathers. She has the look of a child accustomed with performing her duty to its fullest with no deviations; a representative coming from her house, then, more than likely, a typical errand runner to denote visits and messages having more importance than those performed by an ordinary servant. Not unusual, then, and she must not be a firstborn, by that line of logic, but Sabine supposes that a firstborn daughter would be a shameful waste anyways. Better to have a firstborn son, then subsequent daughters for marrying off and further vaulting in status.

Sabine likes her more than Sabo already. "Please, come in," she smiles, retreating into her home.

Her husband is away, Stelly is in class, and Sabo is (once again, and to stay, this time) in his room, which leaves only her to entertain the notions of the visitors. Sabine will do her wifely duty to a tee. Soon, this girl will be satisfied, entertained, and on her way, and if Sabine's lucky - which she intends to be - she will glean this girl's status, purpose, and what she has to offer before the end of it.

—

—

—

—

Valentine follows Sabo's mother into the tearoom.

Ilirya is a goldfinch perched on her left shoulder - the proper location for the dæmons of nobles to perch - and he's utterly still, untweeting and feathers smoothly unruffled. She's too aware of the weighty jingle of diamonds and gold around her neck, as well as the kitten heels she wears, but she keeps her expression - _blank, unaffected, just a bit impatient, 'I have better things to do' - _firmly on her face, as much a mask as the peachy pink lipstick and the subtle lines surrounding her eyes and sculpting her brow.

Her name is not Valentine. She is not herself.

"Please, my dear, sit." Sabo's mother - blond, longfaced, dressed in magenta and adorned with emeralds - has thin red lips, overt eyeshadow, and a painted-on smile like a doll. Her dæmon, a fully yellow cockatiel with two reddened spots of rouge, is silent, crest flattened, perched on the woman's left shoulder, as is proper. "My name is Sabine, but you can call me auntie."

Valentine can't see anything of Sabo in this woman, but she mercilessly stifles the thought before it becomes clear on her face.

She wordlessly sits.

"Tea? Cakes?"

"That would suffice," Valentine says smoothly, disaffected. She doesn't look aside as the woman flags down a servant, sends him scurrying out of the room with a harsh whisper.

"My family welcomes you," the woman says, unsubtly, back to normal volume. She, too, sits, perching at the opposite end of the richly brocaded couch. "To our home."

"My family notes your courtesy," Valentine returns. "How is your business?"

The multitudinous implications of starting with this question put Sabine at a firm disadvantage. As intended.

"Extraordinarily well," Sabine says, twittering a laugh. "Our ships have all made their routes safe and sound! And, ah…" Sabine's painted smile tightens, just the smallest fraction. "May I ask your name, my dear?"

"Charlotte," Valentine says curtly, eyes focused on the table in front of her (as is proper) but eyes narrowing, mouth downturning in displeasure. Her crossed ankles _(ankles crossed for a girl, legs for a lady) _don't uncross, but it's a near thing, and her stockinged toes itch in her uncomfortable shoes. The shined black tip of her heels tap the ground, once. Twice. _Irritation, _her posture reads, from the tip of her toes to her fractionally narrowed eyes. _Impatience._

(Sabine will not ask her family name. It's taboo to directly inquire, as the lesser nobles - Sabine's own family included - don't _have _family names. Addressing the obviously richer party, she will not risk offense.)

"Lovely to welcome you into my home, my dear Charlotte!" Sabine twitters another nervous laugh, dæmon silent and still. "Our cook has the loveliest cucumber sandwiches- oh, they should be here soon-"

Even as she speaks, a servant knocks at the door.

At Sabine's _come in,_ (a man with a well-groomed black mustache and a brindled dachshund dæmon-) the servant wheels in a silver cart laden with petit fours, scones, cakes, and tea sandwiches. The tea itself steams in fine china cups resting on saucers.

"Dismissed," Sabine bites, and the servant hurriedly retreats, bowing as he backs away.

Neither Valentine nor Sabine speak as a butler steps from his post near the wall, taking each saucer in gloved hands before placing it before the two of them.

Notably, he places neither saucer before either of them first. Instead, he gently places them before the two simultaneously - marking, Valentine realizes, an uncertainty in her status, but a belief that her family is in higher standing than Sabine's own.

Perfect.

Sabine waits with bated breath as Valentine reaches a delicate hand for her teacup. She wears a set of opaquely white lace gloves embroidered with gold thread; the fit serves to hide her callouses and the bandaged slice painted across her knuckles, but it also denotes her status as a child of certain standing.

She sips at the tea.

It tastes terrible. "Hm," she offers, placing it down gently back in its saucer.

Proper order of things followed, Sabine sips at her own tea, lets silence reign as the butler places hors d'oeuvres upon tiny plates. What sort of nobility doesn't have a record player in their tearoom to ease conversation? A black spot on their family, most assuredly.

The snacks look utterly delicious, but she doesn't react as her own plate is placed in front of her. Thoughts of Luffy stuffing his face with the tray in front of her are forcibly shoved from her mind-

"That will be all, Dalton." Sabine's voice is sharp, the butler's dismissal is clear.

The butler retreats out of the room with a bow. The door closes with a gentle _click._

"I have come to discuss possible future prospects," she says, immediately following their being 'alone.' She wastes no time. This is the purpose of her visit.

Even looking straight ahead, she doesn't miss how Sabine's eyes start to gleam.

"Your family has an eldest son, yes?" _she_ knows the answer to this question, but more importantly, so does Charlotte. She keeps her implicit knowledge an undercurrent in her voice.

"Ah. Yes. Our son, very recently returned to us, after… time spent studying abroad." Sabine twitters. "What of him?"

"My family seeks to forge connections through marriage to another family with a viable business. We seek to do so through marriage to an eldest son. If successful, our businesses would merge, producing a more profitable union."

She can almost hear the greed painting itself onto Sabine's upturned lips, the beri-signs filtering into her narrow blue (so unlike Sabo's) eyes. She keeps her tone disaffected.

"We are considering several families for this honor. Yours is among several, as your projected profits have exceeded a certain margin."

Sabine's voice holds terribly restrained excitement when she speaks. "Oh? And you've come to propose this?"

"I've come on behalf of my family to _assess_ your firstborn son for viability in handling business."

Sabine stills.

"So, if you could remove him from his lessons," she pretends to assume, letting more impatience bleed into her voice, "I can begin."

"One moment," Sabine says, rising from her seat. She rushes from the room in a flurry of skirts.

—

—

—

—

Sabo is bored.

Coming after last night, it's the worst kind of boredom, stifled and trapped like a caged bird, and staring past the bars on his window, he knows he has to escape. There's bandages wrapped around his head, still throbbing from its assault from the guards (defenders of the weak, yeah _right),_ but his thoughts are completely clear.

There's a hired bodyguard stationed outside his room - one of two, hired to watch his every move, to _cage _him - and there's no way out with him there, Sabo knows. But he has a plan for that. All he needs to do is wait. Wait for his chance.

He stares out the window, into the blue sky, and breathes, exhale shaking, as his eyes start to sting. He can't stay here. He _can't._

Halia has been a monkey on his shoulder ever since last night - since that man with the gorilla, the one from the revolutionary army, the one that _saved _him - and it's 'terribly unbefitting of a noble boy,' he can hear the disdainful voice of his father echoing in his head, but Sabo doesn't _care. _He knows where he wants to go, now. Fiercer than his desire to be a pirate, his dream burns like a pyre, all his fragile ambitions burned at its altar.

He will be a revolutionary.

The fire burns in him. Brighter and hotter than the fire the _nobles _lit, trying to purge all the scum from Goa.

_They should've lit the fire somewhere else, _Sabo thinks to himself, disgusted. His hands clench into fists, teeth gritting. _Then they might've accomplished something. Burning this whole damn high town to the ground._

"Someone's coming, Sabo," Halia whispers in his ear, clinging to his shoulder, jolting him out of his thoughts, and he startles, turns towards the noise as the door slams open.

It's his mother.

"Get those bandages off your face!" she hisses, towering, expression terrible, and Sabo flinches back (Halia doing the same, skittering down his arm to hang off his wrist) as his mother strides forwards, skirts rustling, and reaches a long, clawed hand for his face.

He can't help the sharp shred of fear he knows leaks into his eyes as her fingers grasp the edge of his bandage, peels off the edge of the gauze, starts unwinding the wrappings furiously. Sabo manages not to cower away (she won't hit him if he doesn't move) through the pain of the gauze pulling away from the scabbed over wound at his left temple. He closes his eyes, though he wishes he was strong enough to keep them open. He doesn't want to look.

He misses Makino.

And Luffy. And Val. And Ace.

He misses learning that blueberry pancakes are his favorite. He misses running with ASLV and laughing until he can hardly breathe, sparring until he collapses to the grass, exhausted, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. Fighting together. Learning that it's okay to want to be close, that touch doesn't _have _to be pain, that it can make his heart full and happy if he lets it. Learning what it means to have brothers. What it means to have a family.

A thousand little moments that he clings to so desperately, now, shining and untouched by this _nightmare _that his life has become, because it's all he has, his only refuge from this _reality-_

His mother's hand retracts, taking the bandage with it - dropping it disgustedly to the carpeted floor - and Sabo's eyes open, weary, wary.

His mother looks him over brusquely, raking from his face (clean, no matter what he'd prefer) to his new and shined boots, uncomfortable and unbroken-in. Her eyes linger on his cleanly pressed button down, his cravat (no holes in this one), his blue pants, and lastly, on his scabbed over head wound.

"Put on your best coat," his mother orders, already whirling to leave the room. "And cover that unsightly scab up!" she shouts to a servant in the hall, sweeping through the open doorway.

Sabo blinks at the open door, baffled.

What?

"Please stay still, young sir," a servant whispers, scurrying from the outside hall, kneeling. She holds a gilded tin of power in her hand; to cover up his scab, if his ears aren't fooling him.

The servant starts dabbing at his temple. He considers making a dash for the open door.

Then his bodyguard steps in - the fat pale one with brown hair, cheap suit standing out against the blues and yellows his mother prefers for the wallpaper, carpet, decorative ornaments - looming, and Sabo subsides, Halia worrying at the cuffs of his shirt nervously, knowing his thoughts, his intent.

Patience. She doesn't have to remind him.

Halia climbs up his arm and shifts to a bluebird, matching what's _proper, _perching on his left shoulder, still as a statue save for her fine trembling, and he knows his mother would properly kill him if he came downstairs otherwise but he _hates_ that Halia knows it and she does it before he can tell her to resist.

(Even his own soul has broken down again in this place. _This_ is why he needs to escape.)

He lets the servant cover his face in concealing powder and makeup, repaint him with proper coloring befitting a noble. He stays silent and still as the servant leads him down the hall, down the stairs, taking him from the west wing and towards - if his memory isn't failing him - the tearoom. A guest, then.

"-and oh, that must be him now," comes his mother's voice. "Come in, Sabo!"

Bracing himself, trapped under the brocade of his best coat, Sabo enters.

His mother is sitting at the end of the 'visitor's couch' (at least that's what he used to call it when he was younger, when this house was a home and not a prison), though she's the only person in view over the high back. She gestures impatiently to her side, a tight frown on her face, and Sabo circles around the side of the couch, skirting around the coffee table, peers half-curiously to the other end of the couch, where the guest always sits-

The sight hits him like a punch to the gut. His breath hitches as his eyes widen.

_"Sabo," _his mother says sharply. "Sit _down."_

The world resumes motion. He keeps breathing. Halia's feathers have ruffled, he can see it in his peripheral, but he doesn't dare open his mouth, doesn't dare say anything in fear he'll shout, heart trembling in his throat.

Valentine, dressed in the jewels and finery and paint of a noble, is his mother's guest.

—

—

—

—

It takes every ounce of self-control that Valentine possesses not to rise from the couch and fling herself at Sabo, grab his hand and take off running towards the street.

Only the knowledge that they wouldn't make it farther than the guard outside the hall stills her.

God, he looks so-

So stifled.

Emotion rises in her throat and she _couldn't_ look at him when he first caught sight of her, knew her reaction to the look on his face would've given her away. She kept her gaze ahead, proper, befitting a noble, and only (god it _stings) _looked at him when he sat.

The barest glance - landing like a hummingbird before her eyes flit away - makes her heart stutter.

How long has it been? A day? Longer? His face looks so alien, complexion smoothed by what must be powder. His eyes are downcast, posture defeated- like an animal (a child, a _child) _chained to the ground that knows it can't escape. She sees bruises peeking out from under the cuffs of his embroidered jacket, uncertainty and stifled hope in his eyes, even downcast as they are, staring hard at the ground. His fists are clenched, resting on his knees, Halia a trembling bluebird on his shoulder.

Her breathing is speeding up. "Now that your son has arrived," Valentine says - no, Charlotte, _Charlotte _says - "if we may acquire some privacy."

Her breathing - increased speed barely noticeable, but roaring louder than a foghorn in her ears - evens, calms, smooths out.

What is there to be worried about? This is simple business.

She ignores the attempts of Sabine's firstborn son to catch her eyes. How improper.

Sabine laughs, incredulous. Her son tenses in Charlotte's peripheral. "Surely, I can remain? Sabo gets… nervous, you know, he's quite an intelligent boy, but he can stumble on answers he knows well when he gets overwhelmed-"

"If your son cannot speak to me on his own, then he's hardly fit to run a joint business."

Sabine titters. "Of course, of course!"

"I assume you have ornamental gardens?" The implication in Charlotte's voice is that if they don't, she'll be taking her leave shortly. One is hardly a noble if they do not have money to spare on an ornamental garden.

"Oh, of course! The winterblossoms are particularly lovely this season- had them imported from a little island on our trade route, an incredibly profitable deal we've brokered with the locals-"

Sabine rambles on as she rises, furtively seizing her son's wrist to drag him to his feet when he doesn't immediately follow. A hairline crack trembles into Charlotte's composure.

"Your guard will accompany us," Charlotte says, loath to interact with this woman any longer than necessary. "One cannot be too careful."

Sabine - who has just been cut off mid-sentence - nods enthusiastically. "Indeed! My word, the epidemic of _hooligans-" _she tugs on her son's wrist, long, painted nails digging into the skin, "-in our beautiful city is truly an atrocity! I'm so glad some of the riffraff was disposed of, at least."

Charlotte nods, hands clasped behind her back. It's so _gauche _to bring it up directly…

Her dæmon is trembling.

"We can only hope our city will grow cleaner," she says. Her throat is tight.

"Yes, yes. In fact, my husband-"

Charlotte's mind blurs through Sabine's chatter as she leads them to the gardens. She focuses on putting one heeled foot in front of the other. Toe lining up with each following heel, as she learned, as she practiced-

"-millions of berries in profits, a truly astounding- oh, we're here."

Sabine halts. At some point, she's released her son's wrist, because he now stands off to the side - Sabine between the two of them - and the bodyguard trails behind, hulking and silent. An appropriate distance away.

"Well, these are the gardens!" Sabine smiles, a painted thing, and places a hand on her son's shoulder. "I know my dear Sabo will impress you. Won't you, my darling son?" Her smile doesn't widen. It worsens, deepens, but the boy doesn't flinch as her grip tightens.

"Yes, mother." His voice is a whisper.

"Good." Sabine turns her smile on Charlotte, transitioning from sharp to cloying, sickeningly sweet. "I'll be just inside, dear. Please, take as long as you like! If you have any further questions, I'll be waiting in the tearoom for discussion of business." Sabine titters. "I'm sure this will go wonderfully. And next time, perhaps our dear Sabo may visit your estate! Your, ah… family could be involved in furthering this wonderful opportunity!"

"We can only hope," Charlotte says. A hint of impatience.

"Yes, well." Sabine looks as if she wants to say something and doesn't know quite what. Instead of embarrassing herself - as she has been - with inane chatter, she instead simpers, gives her son one last firm pat on the head, and turns in a flurry of skirts to walk back down the path.

Charlotte is left with the son, the bodyguard, and the gardens.

"Let's walk," she says, brusquely strolling towards the flowering archway. The son hurries to catch up with her.

"Bodyguard?" Charlotte calls out, voice still acceptably quiet (not raised, never raised), head cocked imperiously.

The man hurries to catch up with them, closing the distance eagerly. "Yes… ma'am?" The 'ma'am' is an tentative, mildly incredulous uncertainty. Due to her age, no doubt.

Charlotte procures a neatly wrapped stack of beri bills from the folds of her dress. "Give us some privacy, will you? Not too far, but I wouldn't want anything overheard."

"Of course, ma'am," the bodyguard says, grasping the bills with an enterprising amount of speed. They disappear quickly into his coat jacket.

Without a word, Charlotte turns to walk into the gardens.

For several long moments, all she can hear is the even thump of her heartbeat in her ears, the pattering steps of the son catching up with her. She doesn't look back at the bodyguard, but knows he's waiting at the entrance, soon to be out of sight.

Charlotte keeps her pace even. Sabo- the son- catches up with her, and she turns round the bend of the first hedge she sees- he grabs her arm-

"Valentine," Sabo says, choked, and Charlotte shatters into diamond dust and fractured pieces.

"Not yet," Valentine chokes out, hand coming up - beyond her control, completely and utterly - to grasp at his forearm, returning the pressure twofold, lace-covered fingers grasping tight at his sleeve (she wants to tear these gloves off her hands but she _can't,_ not yet), and she's never so badly wanted to be back home, safe, _away-_

_NOT YET._

Letting go is one of the hardest things she's ever done.

"Walk with me to a place where we can escape through the hedges," she says, low and very rapid. She doesn't know how Ilirya is staying still and silent on her shoulder. "Don't touch me, don't walk too fast, and don't make any suspicious moves. Do _not _run."

He lets go of her, and she's immediately bereft with the loss of it.

Like an engine stuttering, starting, they start walking again. Valentine keeps her pace even. One foot in front of the other.

"How?" The single syllable is a choked whisper.

"Later," Valentine says, tone just barely uneven, hands clasped (proper) behind her back. "Focus."

They walk for a collection of moments in stiff, increasingly tense silence. Valentine is exceedingly aware of the bodyguard - who hasn't moved from the entrance - gazing in their general direction. She's not sure if he can see them beyond the hedges at this angle.

She absently categorizes the winter flowers. The winterblooms _are _lovely, sprays of snowy white with pale blue throats and frilled petals.

They continue walking.

"To the left," Sabo says as they come to an intersection. They turn.

"Twenty more feet and he won't be able to see us from the entrance," Sabo says. Valentine is- she-

They-

Time compresses and Sabo grabs her hand.

He ducks under the lip of the scraggly hedge- _yanks _her hand, dragging her along with him- and pulls her under.

Her spare lace-covered hand reaches down, instinctual, to hike up the hem of her dress. Can't get it dirty-

The branches tear at her arms and face, her paint, her mask, and Ilirya is still a goldfinch on her shoulder - huddled against the assault, but he won't move, won't change, he _can't _or everything will fall to pieces-

They're on the other side.

Valentine straightens up, immediately releases Sabo's hand with a pang, but he doesn't let go.

"We're still acting- Sabo-" her voice is frantic, and Sabo makes a choked sound when she says his name.

He lets go as if burned.

Valentine brushes the dried leaves off her dress - eyes darting around, quickly categorizing, assessing - and they're still on the fringes of the property, far away from the main gate, nothing but grass and the other side of more hedges surrounding them, a high stone wall dividing the lawn from the rest of high town.

Without a word, Valentine clasps Sabo's hand and jumps.

Her heels sink into the grass as she leaps _up. _She tows Sabo (who gasps in surprise, clutching her hand bruisingly tight) behind, five feet, ten feet, a vertical leap topping at fifteen feet high.

She springs off the wrought iron spikes at the top of the wall with her spare hand - _gently, gently - _and quicker than a wink they fall. She drags Sabo's flailing body over with her, keeping him away from the sharp iron.

Valentine's heels creak as they land on the cobblestone of the alley outside.

"Walk," she says, can't bring herself to let go of his hand, and it takes more control than even before to keep from breaking into a run. They were only up there for a second at most - the bodyguard might have seen them, might not, she can't control that outcome - and she knows this map like the back of her hand, has studied it, knows the pathways of Sabo's house and surrounding areas, more than a month of planning culminating in _this-_

She can't let go of his hand. She should. She can't. She wishes the gloves were off, but she can't drop them now. _Evidence._

"Act casual," she says, and they exit onto the crowded street.

Among the high society of Goa, the cascade of feathers and silks and velvets and brocades - golden feathers are in season, they adorn the hair of every other woman they pass - they are simply children walking together downtown, holding hands.

They easily swim through the mild crowd, Valentine gently guiding them, walking them in the proper direction. She can't think beyond her unerring sense of purpose, can't _let _herself think or she'll shatter all over again, and it won't be Charlotte, this time.

Nobody stops them.

They walk out of the hightown, out of the gates of the downtown area and into the fringes after a brief word to the half-asleep guard, and then-

Nobody stops them.

They're in Edge Town.

Valentine yanks Sabo into an alley.

She kicks off her heels, tears off her gloves in a symphony of ripping lace, doesn't give a damn that her fine stockings scrape on the dirty stone (who fucking cares, who _cares) _and it's far too soon but she tightens her hold on Sabo's hand and breaks into a run (she can feel it, she can feel _him, _his callouses against hers and the bruising tight grip and the _warmth, _and she almost sobs, it's so profound).

Her blood is rushing in her ears.

She traces her way towards _The Golden Needle_, takes the most convoluted path imaginable to dodge patrols, ducking into more alleys and shortcuts and taking _leaps _over low walls, ten feet or higher, not willing to waste the fucking time to go around. Her hand is sweating, so is Sabo's, she feels it, but she can't let go.

She pushes open the door. She's heaving for breath.

"Well I'll be damned," says Simmons, cigarette hanging from his mouth, behind the counter with a truly exceptional amount of surprise leaking onto his face, but Valentine isn't looking at him. She's letting go (just for now), unclasping her borrowed diamond necklace and bracelets with trembling hands, shucking her rings, hauling the dress over her head.

She's left in her undershirt and bandages and not much else. "Here's your return," she bites out, slapping the jewelry beside a truly massive stack of berries on Simmons's register, her payment from earlier. Sabo is behind her, saying _something, _but it doesn't matter. "I won't be back for a while. Thank you for everything, Simmons."

She grabs Sabo's hand without turning and yanks him into the back room.

It's exactly as she left it this morning. Laid out, prepared, are her previous clothes - dark shirt and pants, cloak, spare coins. Those can all go to Simmons, she'll leave them here.

Her pipe. The pillow and blanket she used. And-

The prepared clothes for Sabo, drab and unassuming. Pants and a plain shirt, a cloak.

"Change," she bites out, already yanking on the pants, pulling the shirt over her head, reaching down to grab the cloak and fasten it-

Sabo catches her hand. His voice is frantic. "Valentine! What are you even- _what-"_

His voice is shaking and she can't. "No! No, Sabo, not now, not _yet, _we're not _safe." _She hisses the last word, goes from raised shout to a whisper, whirling to clasp his shoulders in her hands and _shake _him. He flinches, eyes wide and face so close to hers, and she releases him, backs away a step.

"Please," she rasps.

They make it to the other side.

They're both in disguise, Sabo's fine clothes long gone (Simmons can _have _them, though she leaves him with a strong suggestion he doesn't sell them in his shop, lest he bring hell upon himself), and Valentine's heart hasn't stopped beating out of her chest since Charlotte shattered into fragments, her own trembling self reaching that nebulous, irreversible breaking point. Ilirya isn't a finch anymore- she doesn't know what he is, isn't paying attention- and Halia's disappeared from Sabo's shoulder, but she must be _somewhere _on him.

They escape through Dogra's tunnel under the wall.

The main gate is distant, closed, manned by soldiers outside and inside the walls, even more roving over the ruins of the Gray Terminal like ants picking a corpse clean, but they're far away from it, exiting into the crumbled ashes and remains of refuse and humanity. They cut unassuming figures, blending in with the burned, moving too quickly to catch as they skirt close to the wall, hands still clasped.

They head straight for the forest.

Valentine can barely think past her terror. All her plans, weeks of researching maps and fishing for information from Sabo of noble customs, scrounging etiquette books from the shops in Edge Town, setting things up with Simmons, carefully crafting this plan beyond the edges of her own attention 'cause god she fucking _hoped _she wouldn't need it but she knew better, she knew better, and she thought she might not be strong enough but she did it anyway because she needed, she _needed-_

"-VALENTINE!"

Sabo digs his heels in and stops.

By consequence Valentine stops, too, yanked hard back against Sabo by their still-attached hands, stumbling from the backlash and colliding with him so hard that they almost tumble to the ground, collapsing to kneel in the dirt, arms coming around each other.

"Val," Sabo whispers, and hearing that nickname- the nickname he gave her, in his voice-

Her breathing hitches. Her eyes flit to his face.

His hood has fallen back. His eyes are wide, watery, scab at his temple still powdered over, concealed, but it's _him. _Sabo's face, the honest and true shape of it, upturned nose and baby fat cheeks and gap-toothed mouth and blonde eyebrows, golden hair sheared close to his head and caught in tightly coiled ringlets from the brutally short length of it, so different from the long hair of nobility. This close, she can catch the dark blue of his eyes - same as his mother's, but she bucks the truth, because they're _not _the same, nowhere _near _the same - and the stifled emotion in them starting to break through, watering over with a sheen of tears.

Dappled sunlight paints his face, light filtered through the leaves.

…They're in the forest?

"We've been running for half an hour," Sabo says, gently, like he doesn't want her to break. His hand has drifted from hers to her shoulder, his other trembling as it flits from her elbow to her face, catching her in a barely-there grip. "We're okay now. We're safe."

"...We're safe?" Valentine repeats, woozy. Plaintive.

_Can we rest now? Can we rest?_

"We're safe," Sabo echoes, pulling her into a tight hug on the forest floor. His face presses into her neck, and she can feel the tears and snot leaking onto her, so similar but so unlike so long ago. "You got me." Even muffled, she hears the disbelief, the wonder. "We're safe."

In the circle of Sabo's arms, past the fire, out of Goa, clasping him tight enough that they'll never have to let go, Valentine breaks.

—

—

—

**Notes:**

Well.

This chapter has been a huge undertaking, and a big leap for this fic. I hope all the nuances I meant to convey came through clearly, that it kept you on the edge of your seat, and most of all, that it was believable!

If you have any questions, please ask them in the reviews. (I can't promise I'll answer them, but isn't the inability to answer an answer in itself?) Or just opinions! I love hearing comments above all else; especially the lengthy, in-depth ones, but in the end anything you can do is appreciated. Each comment motivates me to write just a bit faster, just a bit more.

Man, I love Sabo a lot. Would you believe that at the beginning of this fic, I was kind of 'meh' on him? But he wrote himself into this loveable, strong little boy who deserves so much more.

(I was going to make a joke about the "Sabo Retrieval Arc," but... too soon? :p)

This chapter is dedicated, again, to my commenters. Y'all are why I keep writing.

(Also, this is the crossposted version of this chapter, so the ao3 version - posted by the same title under the username 500shadesofblue - has a lot more strikethrough shenanigans that fanfic just... does not allow lmao. Still, I did my best to substitute with emdashes, parenthases, and pronoun changes!)


	6. Chapter 6: Moon

She cries.

Great, tearing sobs rip themselves out of her chest, and though she tries to stifle them in Sabo's shoulder, the wailing rises above the trees. Sabo cries, too, but his hiccuping, snotty tears aren't quite as loud, as desperate and broken as hers. All her fear, her mourning - innocence lost, her first life taken - and her unresolved hatred, her panic and her complete repression of self, a nine-year-old girl older than her years who's got Sabo, she got him _back-_

She cries like her grief is ripping her heart to shreds.

Ilirya and Halia are crying, too, she can hear them, can feel how they're matched and curled together, pressing against their sides, and she knows they might be touching but she doesn't care. Sabo is _here, _Sabo is _safe, _he won't be gone and he won't be hurt and maybe, if she can have this, then-

She can't stop crying. Hot hears are rolling down her cheeks and soaking into Sabo's shirt, snot leaking unfettered, and she'd usually have more self control than this but she- she can't.

She can't.

She lets go.

Holding her too, crying just as fiercely, tears cutting their way from him like razorblades, Sabo does the same.

For innocence lost. For dreams burned, for people killed, for harsh realities learned. For the cruel truth of blood, the chains of fear and the need to escape before you're irreversibly changed.

For a future altered.

They fall apart.

* * *

She hardly notices through the haze when her tears roll to a stop.

Her head is pounding, her eyes stinging, her throat choked. Her head is tucked against Sabo's skinny shoulder, and one of his hands is on her head, the other wrapped around her. His arms have gone loose - holding, not clutching - and his hand strokes rhythmically, absently over her hair, the even rasping of congested breaths coming from his throat the only sound she can hear above her own breathing, the rustling of leaves, and the twittering of birdsong. She doesn't feel any tears (or other things that leak from the face during sobbing sessions) actively wetting her her hair, anymore, which must mean Sabo is just as wrung out of misery as she feels.

She hears something else, and for a moment, she can't quite place what it is. She and Sabo are still kneeling on the forest floor, dæmons curled up together close by, but she can hear the sound of voices and- Ilirya is- Ilirya is _talking._

She feels another few tears squeeze themselves from her wide eyes, face pressed into damp fabric as she hears Ilirya's soft, choked murmurs, Halia's reassurances and own tearful whispers. Is this the cost of silence? Whatever the price is, she's willing to pay it. She'd do it again if she had to.

She takes a deep breath, scrunching her eyes shut like she could possibly hope to block out the sound of everything else - everything but Ilirya and Halia's voices, Sabo's breathing - and she reflexively inhales the musty smell of new-old clothes coming off Sabo's shoulder (the clothes _are _new, after all), the scent of crisp cold air warmed by sunshine, the ever-present background smell of grass and trees and wild things and soil.

She feels the sunshine, warm on her neck, the whispering play of the breeze over her skin, and realizes she hasn't felt them since she pulled the trigger.

Yet she keeps holding on, not ready to let go. She absently wonders why the beasts aren't pouncing on what looks like easy prey - two small figures huddled and unmoving, previously making a godawful racket - and concludes with mild amusement that the wild animals of the forest must be becoming more wary. Whether the hyperpredators in question recognize the sight of them, the scent of them, or something else, she has no idea, but whatever the reason is, they're steering clear. Or maybe they're just that lucky.

(With dawning certainty, fingers flexing against the fabric of Sabo's cloak, she realizes that if she can go on a mental tangent like this, she's ready to let go.)

For one more moment, she lets herself squeeze a little tighter, lean a little closer. Sabo squeezes back, absent and bemused, reciprocating the pressure, but it's time.

She shifts. Pulls back.

She doesn't withdraw completely - doesn't think she could, even if she wanted to - but she unsticks her face from Sabo's shirt, wincing at the string of snot that trails from her nose, connecting her face to the fabric.

"Whoops," she rasps, the aftermath wreaking hell on her vocal cords. Ah, damn, she sounds like she smokes ten packs a day.

"You ruined my new shirt," Sabo says softly - the first thing he's said for god knows how long - his voice equally as scratchy and wrecked, not letting go, and she chokes on a laugh.

Their banter. Her heart clutches at it, hungry, unwilling to give it up. She is, at her core, a selfish creature.

"But I got it for you," she whispers back, smiling faintly. She must look like hell - bloodshot eyes, messy hair, running on stress and fumes - but she's smiling. Small and fragile but honest, slowly curving her mouth like the sun peeking through the clouds.

"If it's a gift," Sabo rasps, "that means it needs to be taken care of even more."

"I'll get you a new one," Valentine says, and finally - slowly - pulls back.

She's ready.

For just a moment, Sabo's hands tighten on her and he doesn't let go. But he releases her, lets her lean back and rub the heels of her hands furiously over her eyes, brushing away stray tears.

"Fuck," she says softly, and with feeling. She's never felt so tired in all her life. If it was up to her, she'd curl up on the ground, right here, and go to sleep for a week.

"Hey," says Sabo.

Her hands drop. She looks up.

Sabo is still close, eyes as bloodshot as hers, looking like just as much of a mess.

"Thanks for coming to get me."

Emotion swells in Valentine's chest.

"I'll always come for you," she rasps, honest.

_You or Luffy or Ace. Every single one of you. Whenever. Wherever. Always._

Sabo inhales, and wordlessly, he pulls her into another hug.

They stay there for a very long time.

* * *

Walking back to Dadan's, she feels as if she's waking from a very long sleep.

She's still holding hands with Sabo, even as gross and cried-out and snotty as they are. Hands clasped, like she and Luffy do, and though she has the physical energy to run through the forest (and probably beat the shit out of anyone if they tried to get between her, Sabo, and safety) her mental energy is at absolute zero. She wants to sleep for a week, and by the way Sabo doesn't try to hurry their pace - which is, basically, shamefully, a walking pace - he feels the same. (No matter the state of her body, her mind pleads for rest. She's not really in the state to disagree.)

It takes them more than two hours (more or less, she's not counting) to get back, and by the time they do, they're well into mid-afternoon (based on the positioning of the sun visible through the gaps in the trees) and Valentine has rebuilt herself into a semblance of wholeness.

Ilirya and Halia are flying overhead (not so far that she can feel the panicked tug in her gut of _too far, _but high enough that she can't hear a word they're saying), and they're still talking. She lets them be, even as the well-worn, recently restitched silence between her and Sabo soothes her weary soul. She takes the fragile pieces of herself and lets them just _be, _just exist, and that in itself is healing.

They break through the treeline and take their first steps into Dadan's clearing with little fanfare.

The sight of Dadan's house - utterly unchanged, the same as she left it - is both incongruously strange and a heavy weight lifted off her shoulders. The hodgepodge, oft-repaired and multicolored architecture of it, the crisscross windows, the blue glass... it's all familiar, reassuring. It's oddly quiet, though, she thinks, tugging on Sabo's fingers absently.

"Ace," Sabo whispers, hand clutching hers tighter.

"Hm?" Valentine absently flicks her eyes to Sabo's, trails her attention to whatever he's staring at-

Oh.

_Ace._

Ace is tied to a tree. He's plastered with bandages, scuffed up and dirty with traces of soot, expression completely indescribable, eyes and face red like he's been screaming. He's also staring straight at them.

He looks like he's seeing ghosts.

Valentine doesn't know if she says anything, or if Sabo does, because she notices Aurelia right after, and her heart seizes.

Aurelia's not even tied up. She's laying on the ground below Ace's feet, eyes closed and panting like she can hardly breathe, looking like she's in the final stages of panicking, giving up, or maybe dying. Maybe even a combination of all three. And she's-

She's in the shape of a tawny, long-furred cat, curled up tight, nestled in the cradle of the tree's thick roots.

_Ilirya's favorite shape._

The thought strikes her with no small flood of dread.

_"Valentine!" _Her eyes jerk back up to Ace's face, and the sheer _emotion _flooding up from inside and painting its way onto his expression enough to take her breath away. Ace's shout is raw, torn out of him, halfway to a scream. _"Sabo!"_

He starts to struggle, yanking at his bindings like an animal caught in a trap, the bloody stripes of rope burn around his arms and legs chafing raw and agonizing even as she watches, and she's frozen, unable to tear her eyes away so she _sees _when his breath hitches from helplessness, when the beginnings of _something_ starts to build in his throat-

She's running forward before she can think.

Sabo's right beside her as they race towards Ace's tree, and Aurelia is stirring, feeble, but she's still not moving. Valentine tries to shove her brain into the zone clearly marked _logic _but she's failing, breathing faster and faster as she skids to a stop and tears at Ace's ropes and tries to find a knot. She's so recently broken and everything is so close to the surface, tearing at her like shattered glass and she just needs- she needs to get him _out-_

Sabo is doing the same, both of their hands frantic, and Ace makes a strangled noise of frustration and rage and pain as he lashes out at the trunk of his tree with his unbound legs.

The trunk splinters.

Valentine curses, maybe, but she's grasping at Ace's forearm and tearing at the ropes with her other hand as she grabs and _yanks._

The rope frays and tears under her fingers like twine.

She pulls Ace to her and Sabo _hard, _yanking him away from the falling tree (god_dammit_ Ace) with enough force that they all go flying and tumbling backwards. The tree falls away from the house with a massive _boom, _the thunder of its mass hitting the ground like struck lightning, sending sprays of dirt and clouds of dust flying, dead leaves spinning through the air.

She's on her back, head swimming. Sabo is beside her, and Ace - freed, _free_ \- is mostly on top of her, half laying over Sabo, and they're all breathing hard in the dust, a warm tangle of limbs, adrenaline pumping through their veins.

Valentine is still under the overly-heavy weight of Ace (what the hell does this kid eat? tigers?), and feeling Sabo's shoulder pushing against hers, her breathing evening out as her heartbeat's frantic dance starts to slow, she stares up at the blue sky. For just a moment.

"YOU_ IDIOT!"_

The shout is immediate and in-her-face and _loud _and she flinches, startled, at the sheer vehemence and heartbreak packed into two small words.

She stares up at Ace with wide eyes.

He's crying.

His hair is in tangled disarray, waves snarled into matted knots, his cheeks and forehead and the bridge of his nose covered in squares of gauze and plastered with bandaids. His face is even more scuffed and grubby up close, and he's so near that she could probably count his freckles. He's-

He's crying.

"You fucking idiot!" He screams, and he doesn't know he's crying at all, because in front of them, he never would. "Me and Luffy thought you were _dead! _We thought you were- _why the fuck did you go to the terminal? _You KNEW about the fire, we went to get you and- and you _didn't come out! We thought we left you there _to DIE!"

Valentine's eyes are wide as Ace grabs the front of her shirt in his hands, shaking her back and forth like a ragdoll (she winces as the back of her skull thumps against the ground), and she blinks once, twice, as tears _plip plip _on her face. They paint clean tracks through the soot on his cheeks.

He makes a strangled, miserably inarticulate noise, fingers clenching in her collar. "We thought you-"

Abruptly, Ace lets her go. Her back thumps as it hits the dirt.

"We thought you died," he finishes, a rasping, empty whisper, hapless, his hands hanging limp by his sides, and Valentine - dazed - can only stare, unutterably, inexpressibly stunned.

"And _you-"_

Ace tears his gaze away, the sheer force of him pivoting to grasp at Sabo's shoulders, still half on her, and even from the odd angle she can see of his face, she can trace the teartracks dripping down his cheeks, slipping off his chin to speck saltwater in the dusty earth.

Her brain is not computing. She can hear Ace shouting at Sabo, hear the faint voices of Ilirya and Halia and Aurelia reuniting, the former two speaking softly to the latter (did they pull her out of the way?) and huddling against her, all cats with tails twining, but she doesn't understand.

She doesn't understand.

"You thought I was dead?" she rasps, to nobody, to nothing, staring up blankly at the sky, spread eagle in the grass and dirt, legs still pinned by Ace's (shouting) weight.

Somehow, he hears her, because Sabo (whose face is utterly bemused, stuck in shock same as she, hands hovering in the air between Ace and himself in the universal _whoa there _gesture) is released and Ace turns to her again, gazing down with (misery then cataclysmic relief turned to) fury burning in his gaze-

And the door to Dadan's slams open, flung so wide it hits the outside wooden slatted wall with a sharp _crack._

"SABO! VAL!"

Luffy.

The sheer _speed _of Luffy's sprint and flying tackle knocks Ace clean off her, sends the four of them tumbling into the dirt, and her arms are full of sobbing Luffy, clutching her and Sabo and Ace tightly with skinny arms that'll always stretch far enough to fit them all in their embrace.

* * *

They're all beat to high hell, and they manage to ignore this fact for approximately one Luffy-grade sob session.

Ace's own tears have long since stopped, but he's holding onto her and Sabo with a fierce cling that she herself only shed hours ago, outgrown from crying everything into Sabo's shirt and letting Sabo do the same in return. Ace probably needs to cry more - _should_ cry more, at the very least - but when Luffy flung himself into the pile, sobbing, Ace hid his face in her stretched-out shirt collar and let his tears and anguish fall silent and stifled, chafing rope burns and purpling bruises ignored.

Luffy is still crying unrepentantly, and from his runny nose and red eyes - not an uncommon sight on him, to be fair, but still - it seems like he's been crying for a while before they arrived. He's clinging to her and Sabo both, arms triple wrapped around the both of them, and it doesn't look like he's planning on letting go for a while.

There's been no sight of Dadan (not that Valentine is paying much attention to anything other than the boys in her arms), but in her peripheral, she did catch sight of Dogra, Magra, and some of the other bandits peering out of the door before _they_ caught sight of the entire scene, ducking right back in after apparently deciding joining the reunion looked like more trouble than it was worth.

And to be fair, they did fell a tree.

* * *

The rest of it blurs.

Valentine is absently sure that there's a _lot _of information she doesn't know (Ace and Luffy went looking for her at the terminal? Why are they so beat up? Where's Dadan? What _happened?)_ but it all seems so distant, easily deferrable for a future-Valentine to deal with.

For now, sleep.

If she was more than half-conscious, she'd be very embarrassed that she fell asleep in the grass and dirt (buried under the other half of ASLV's flailing limbs) before the end of their clinging/crying/pileup. Sleepily dozing and hazy headed as she is, though, she can't muster any embarrassment at all, even when she feels the telltale sensation of her limbs being shifted, extricated from the pile and hauled onto someone's back as she's lifted into piggyback.

Whoever's carrying her smells familiar. (Safe.) The wavy tangles of hair that tickle her cheek when she inhales smell like grit and burning, like smoke, but under that, there's something else. Something that lets her relax, yield, and fall into unconsciousness' warm embrace.

* * *

She wakes up immobilized.

A brief bolt of sheer panic sizzles through her like lightning before she realizes where she is, who's surrounding her, exactly what the warm pressure pushing her down into the blanketed floor really is, and her pupils dilate as her night vision adjusts. Sleepily, she struggles to make sense out of the shapes she sees in the dark around her.

The layout of the space she's in is familiar, even in the dark (nightttime?), the silhouettes of supplies surrounding them dimly visible, so it must be- right. Her brain makes the connection, briefly brightening her expression, emotions made softer and limbs pliant with comfortable warmth.

Their old bedroom in Dadan's. The supply room.

The small, cleared-out alcove from the barrels and boxes stuffed with bandit goods (patterned pants, halberds, and the like) - the one that had comfortably fit the cuddling trio of herself, Ace, and Luffy - is now slightly more cramped.

Ragtag, patchwork blankets and quilts layer over the floor, pillows strewn about, while Ace and Luffy and Sabo and herself are all piled together in a gordian knot of limbs, warm and slightly sweaty, hemmed in on all sides by the walls of boxes and barrels and the door at their feet. She's always liked small, familiar spaces - especially in the dark - so she only blinks sleepily, wriggles a bit, testing, and- yep. No movement at all. The best she can do is wiggle her fingers and toes.

(Of course, she could probably shed the comfortable haze of sleep, lift and throw the whole lot of them off of her if _really _pressed, but why in the world would she want to do that?)

Luffy - who's plastered facedown to Sabo's front, but has one of his arms wrapped tightly around Valentine's torso, pulling her tightly to Sabo's side - is dead asleep, snoring and drooling into Sabo's shirt without a hint of restraint. His arms are double wrapped, encircling Valentine's waist and Sabo's shoulders - the latter of whom is on his back, like her - and clutching tight, unwilling to let go even in sleep.

But Valentine, to her increasingly sleepy amusement, wouldn't be able to move regardless, because Ace - usually such a reserved cuddler - is _un_reservedly, undeniably cuddling the hell out of her and Sabo.

Ace - almost mirroring Luffy's adorable attempts to cover Sabo entirely, the youngest of their quartet tucked under Sabo's chin and clinging to the both of them with a tenacious grip - is pretty much covering Valentine completely with his sprawled limbs, legs tangled with hers, the four of them packed tight like sardines. Ace's face is tucked into her shoulder, edging into the intersecting junction between Sabo and herself, one of his arms thrown over Luffy (and Sabo), the entirety of his body weight (mild in the scope of things, but hey, she's _nine) _pressing her down, the other hand curled loosely into her collar. Valentine's cheek is pillowed on Sabo's arm - she distantly hopes she's not cutting off his circulation, but hey, everyone has to make sacrifices - and her own arm is smushed between her and Sabo's torsos, the other wrapped loosely around Ace's back.

It's such a contrast from before.

She exhales gently, eyes closing again, letting herself unabashedly _enjoy _the warm weight of all of her boys here, in one place, safe. (Though the amusing visual of Luffy and Ace using her and Sabo as a glorified mattress brings a small giggle to her smiling mouth, one she barely stifles.)

She distantly remembers enjoying things like this even in her last life. Cuddling, to her, wasn't just warmth and sensation; weight and pressure factored into it just as much, making her sleepy and pliable. It isn't a weakness, by any means (as if she'd let someone get close enough to cuddle her without trusting them completely), but if she trusts someone already, a surefire way to get her dozing is the heavy press of someone else's bodyweight, the reassuring comfort of simple skin on skin.

It's different now, in her smaller, child's body. She's rarely so sharply aware of it: of the _differences, _numerous as grains of sand on the beach, uncountable, that slip through her fingertips when she grasps them too tightly.

She tries not to think about it.

Now, she holds more strength in a single hand than she could have mustered in her whole body. The weight of others sits differently on her. Still reassuring, but the knowledge lurks in the back of her head: she could lift them all with ease, heft them over her shoulders and take off at a run, if she needed to. Not that it wouldn't drain her, of course, but she's never _truly _been pushed to her new, ever-increasing limits before. She has no idea how far she could really run, how much she could _really _lift, only that she can leap almost twenty feet in the air with ease and land from a four story jump with barely any effort at all and that she's never felt her lungs screaming so loud for air that she needs to stop running, not since those terrible, distant months in the beginning, when it was just her and Luffy, weak and alone.

Even with her thoughts buzzing, she's extraordinarily tempted to simply fall back asleep. Banish some of her lurking shadows and hide away under the weight of those she trusts the most in the world.

But she feels the restless call in her bones, and Ilirya is awake. He's extricating himself from the dæmon cuddle-pile, almost as tightly wound as their own, a long-furred cat staring up at her, implacable, eyes reflecting like moons in the dark.

She sighs through her nose. She doesn't need to be told what he wants.

Carefully, slowly - but firmly, good god these boys have tight grips - she wiggles, cajoles, and slips herself out of the clutches of three sets of hands. Ace, in particular, is difficult to shed - he groans in his sleep, brow knitting in discomfort, as she lifts his shoulders and untangles their legs to slip out from under him - and she holds her breath as she lowers him carefully, gently to the blankets below.

Sabo and Luffy latch back onto him immediately, pulling him closer, and Valentine releases her breath in a quiet sigh, standing, stretching out her limbs and arching her back with her hands above her head.

For just a moment she gazes at them, the trio of boys curled up together. It makes her heart quietly burn to think they could have _lost _this, and even if her life is a haze of has-beens and uncertain should-I-be-here's, if she's done anything, even if she dies tomorrow, they have this.

Even if she dies tomorrow, they have this.

She turns to leave.

Ilirya traces behind her on silent cat feet as she slips out the door, padding soundlessly down the creaking stairs on her toes before she spirits away into the night, door shutting gently, silently, finally, behind her.

One pair of eyes watches her go.

* * *

She runs through the nighttime forest, fleetfooted, leaves whipping at her bare skin, ghosting around the wide trunks of trees and leaping over brambles, bare traces of herself left behind. She feels slit-pupiled eyes on her, appraising, but she leaves them quick behind her, running too far and too fast to be worthy prey for the nocturnal predators of the wood. The attentions of carnivorous beasts feel like the dull side of a blade tracing over her wrist, the possibility of blood, but she doesn't spare it a second thought, only running faster, leaping higher, 'til she's naught but a blur, a ghost haunting the hundred-year-old trees.

She doesn't know where she's going, only knows that she must go, must run. Her new-old self is still cobbled together from broken pieces, misaligned and strange, because grief and panic does not fade so easily as one day of tears and absolution. Running with Ilirya bounding through the underbrush in the form of a yearling buck, his antlers branching and velvety in the soft dark under the canopy, means that she does not need to _be; _she merely needs to feel, to move, to let the uncertain edges of self seep into the nighttime noise around her. She runs with her soul, alien and strange, familiar and jarring as her own face, wind pulling at her skin, but she can't be held down, can't be held back, can't think of any other place she could possibly be, so she runs. She keeps running.

Time blurs, compresses, until she feels that she's been running forever, seconds and minutes an uncertain, soft-edged thing. The cold air is like knives in her lungs, but she doesn't feel the sting, the chill, radiating too much heat to feel anything but warm. For a long while, running through the woods that have housed her for almost the whole of her childhood, she lets herself simply exist in the push and pull of her muscles, the pounding of her feet against the wood and the earth, the thrum of her heartbeat in her ears.

The exhilarating rush of moving her body seeps and bleeds into her whole self, blooming, a drop of ink in frothing water, until all she can feel is this.

She runs, faster, quicker, until she's gasping and her limbs ache, and she doesn't know how much time has been eaten by her pounding feet, doesn't know she's been heading for a destination until she steps into the clover meadow.

(Her feet - calloused from wear, thick-soled - hurt, just a bit, from her brief stint of stockinged feet on cobblestone. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only this morning, wasn't it?)

Someone must've taken off her shoes before they carried her to bed, because she's barefoot, dressed in her usual sleepwear of soft flannel pajama pants and a sleeveless shirt. She's panting off the exertion of her run as she slows, bleeding off speed, and she trails to a stop just outside the boundaries of the clearing while Ilirya trails to a stop just behind her, silent in the forest, his presence clearly felt.

The chill of the air batters against her skin as waves against a sheer cliff, the cold rendered mute by the generated warmth of her near-sprint, radiating outwards from the heart thundering in her chest like a miniature sun, and she steps forward, unhesitating, panting openmouthed and loud in the deafening quiet of the night. Her toes sink into the clover; mysterious and lush looking under the moonlight, deep green painted silver in the dark with leaves spread like the petals of a flower, and she revels in the sensations, the feelings, the world so _sharp _when before, while Sabo was gone, it was made of muddled grays. Her breathing is evening out, now, slowing, the edges of her frayed self slowly gathering back into her chest in the odd, gradual manner of a spool of thread being rewound, and she wiggles her toes against the soft green, didn't bother slipping on her socks and boots before she left, the only thought on her mind to _go. _She feels the consequences of that now; further aches and pains and small cuts carved into her soles, but-

With the soft caress of clover against her feet, the cool air whispering against her heated face, she knows the aches are worth it.

Ilirya steps into the clearing, a bare heartbeat behind her, blocked-out browns and whites painted monochrome, inkwell eyes and inkwell nose, velvet antlers lustrous and strange under the starlight. She sighs and looks skyward, up at the bright blanket of the cosmos shining above, the bright half-moon, breathing evening out as she looks into the dizzying array.

Even with the hightown of Goa more near than it is faraway, looking up feels like slipping into another world. The constellations burn bright and vibrant, flickering and vivid, and she's searching for the north star before she realizes it isn't there, wonder slipping into melancholy. Her eyes skate over the breadth of the stars, mysterious and lovely, knowing that every constellation is unknown to her. No big dipper, no orion's belt, and even the moon - a constant, in this world or the next - is off, odd, and she realizes in the space of a heartbeat that it's tinted blue.

Was that possible? Before? She thinks yes, but she can't…

She can't remember.

But she does-

She-

(Sitting on the bleachers at her brother's soccer game when she was young, looking up into the falling rain painted bright and shining by the floodlights. Against the evening sky, the illuminated water drops looked like stars rushing by at warp-speed, and she was traveling through the universe, barrelling through outer space-)

Ilirya nudges under her hand, coat coarse and wild and nose wetly pressing, and she absently strokes over the familiar-alien shape of his face, the velvet of his antlers-

(Another memory dips into her, vivid-sharp, edge keen enough to cut. Her, laying on her back, years later, and under her is the cold concrete of a tennis court/the rough wood of an island dock/the grass of a hill/the packed dirt and sand of a desert at night, and she's looking into the starry sky, holding hands with her friends, leaning against them as they all stay silent, and the quiet was warm. Doing this a thousand different ways with different people, her hands and her shape bigger, her heart thrumming, looking into a different sky-)

A different sky.

The emotion rises harsh and fast like a flood, nearly chokes her, and she heaves out a dry sob, tearing her eyes away from the stars and walking forward, ahead, anywhere but here.

She strides through the blanket of clover, not yet wet from the morning dew, but even that lovely distraction can't yoke her emotions. They slip through her fingers, ghosts as much as she, grieving for losses she can hardly remember, and she heaves out another dry sob, choking-

The side of her bare foot knocks against a shape in the dark.

She nearly jumps out of her skin (even as Ilirya _does, _leaping near five feet in the air, deer's form contorting and twisting in panic before he becomes a snarling panther, falling like a stone with new weight and hitting the ground on all fours), mind shifting from _emotional turmoil _to _whatthefuck _so fast she has a full body flinch, hands curling into fists. She shifts into _ready position _in a heartbeat, slightly crouched and fists raised, eyes wide and searching, the edge to her tearful expression hardening, alert.

Nothing moves.

Around her, the night is still and breathing, crickets chirping and night frogs croaking their songs. Her awareness of the forest's beast does not fade, nor does the thick knot in her throat, and nothing attacks.

Everything is still and lovely, from the stars in the sky to the blanket of clover surrounding her.

What?

Her brow furrows, eyes flicking around the clearing in a brisk, assessing view. Nothing around her, nothing in the forest that can reach this far or shoot projectiles, so-

She narrows her eyes down at the ground, eyes sharp and squinting under the light of the half-moon, tracing over the bed of clover, and...

There's something round.

Maybe a foot away from her right pinkie toe. Pale and tinted some unidentifiable color, the stem curled, its surface covered with-

Swirls.

In a trance, she leans down to pick it up.

Her hand clasps over it.

She straightens up, holding the fruit in hand, barely breathing.

It's in the shape of a longstemmed peach, dimpled and full, heavy as she'd imagine a peach would be, though in the entirety of her life on Dawn Island, she's never seen a single one. Her fingertips stroke over it absently and the surface is hard; ridged and slick, like keratin, smooth and shiny with the unnatural sheen of wax, raised in gentle swells, swirled bumps where the loose spirals elevate off the surface of the fruit itself. There's no soft, giving plushness when she squeezes, no baby-soft fuzz, nothing that makes it seem even remotely appetizing.

Ilirya presses close to her ankles and she lowers her hand, lets him whuff delicately, inhaling the scent of it.

"Smells like rot," Ilirya murmurs, the familiar sound of him low, masculine and alien in the dark strangeness of the night. Is he really her soul?

"...You know you don't have to," Ilirya says, soft, and all traces of doubt disappear, because then he says, with utter certainty-

"But I know you will."

"Of course," she murmurs. She raises it to her mouth to take a bite.

—

—

—

Ran doesn't talk as Luffy steps into the clover place.

Ran hasn't talked at _all _since Luffy woke up and Val was gone. She just got all small and jumped on his shoulder and Luffy thought _okay, we gotta go find her then, _'cause when Ran doesn't talk, that means he's gotta do something important.

Luffy followed the sound of Val's running as she went through the forest but she's so _fast, _a little too fast for him to keep up. He lost her trail at the last second and he panicked for a whole minute before he realized what they were near, where she went.

So he went there too.

And now he's here and the tree branches aren't hiding the sky so he can see now that the stars are _so _bright, brighter than all the lanterns that float in the sky and on the sea on festival day back in Foosha. Usually Val is pretty sneaky so he thought she'd be hard to find, but she's super easy to find, actually (not see, he can't see her yet) because Ilirya is _big._

Luffy likes Val's dæmon. Ilirya tells him stories and stuff about Val he can't figure out own his own, dumb stuff like _she doesn't want to be a burden but she needs a lot of hugs today, _and _she doesn't think she deserves you, _and other stupid things like that. Val _can_ be kinda stupid sometimes, but that's okay, because Luffy knows that he doesn't get stuff sometimes, too, and usually the stuff that he doesn't get, Val gets, and she explains it to him or just handles it. That's good too! Luffy handles the stuff that _she_ doesn't get, so it evens out. Nobody can do everything!

Plus, 'deserve' is a dumb word. Luffy's family deserves everything.

Anyways, he can't see Val but he _can _see Ilirya, because Ilirya is Big.

Big with a capital-B. (Which he knows about 'cause Makino taught him about capital letters.) And _long, _covered in fluffy fur and scales too, with funny antlers on his head like a deer and whiskers like a catfish. Curled up like a snake so Luffy can barely see his face, not moving at all (but breathing, so everything's good).

Luffy steps closer and Ilirya looks up and _snarls, _really sharp teeth (the big pointy ones longer than Makino's kitchen knives) and weird eyes shiny like ripples and moons. Ilirya looks angry and mean before he sees that it's just Luffy, and then he relaxes, calms down, fur going less big and teeth hiding.

"Where's Val?" Luffy says. It sounds weird in the quiet air, so Luffy tries to make his voice a little less loud at the end of it.

Ilirya doesn't say anything back, he just uncurls. And _wow _Ilirya is big, because it takes a whole ten seconds for Luffy to see Val, curled up on the clover with her knees tucked to her chest and her hands pillowing her cheek.

Her hair is what draws Luffy's eye the quickest, like usual, especially with the shiny light of the moon on it like that, so he trots over and reaches out to touch (his fingers are mostly clean), petting over her head like he'd pet over Ran, from the top of her head to the ends all the way down her back. Ilirya makes a rumbly sound but it's totally okay, so Luffy ignores it, because it's just as soft under his hand as he remembers, nothing like how Ran's fur feels, sometimes, when she's in a shape that wears fur and- right. Hair. (Not fur.)

Luffy brushed through it with his fingers earlier (Val's hair, not Ran's fur), when she was super asleep and wouldn't wake up for anything. Her hair had snot in it (Luffy asked how it got there but Sabo turned red and wouldn't tell him), so he had to get a cloth wet and get it out like Makino does to him sometimes when his hair gets blood in it or just gets dirty. Luffy made his hand into a claw and tried really hard not to make any noises or yank too hard when he hit the knotty bits, biting his tongue to keep quiet, because Val 'needed her rest' and Luffy had a feeling back then that Sabo and Ace would have gotten really mad at him if he woke her up. Still, neither of _them _had any idea how to brush her hair, so Luffy had to do it.

He has to hold back a giggle just remembering the looks on their faces. Shishishi!

And he used another wet rag (not the snotty one!) to get all the paint off her face. He couldn't get it all off, especially the stuff that made her eyes look all big, but the pink stuff came off easy. He didn't want to rub at her eyes too hard anyways 'cause sometimes he has a problem with pushing too hard, so he tried for a little and gave up quick. Val can do the rest herself when she wakes up, 'cause she's really good at the stuff where you don't have to press so hard. _And_ she's a better fighter than Luffy! It feels pretty unfair sometimes, but then Luffy remembers she's Val and Val's always nice and holds his hand and gives him hugs whenever he wants and she was his first friend, before he even met Sabo and Ace, and now they're family and she can never leave him, so it's alright. He'll just have to get even stronger! Then he'll be able to beat up all the guys she can't beat up, and they'll win every time. And she can do all the stuff where you're not supposed to press too hard!

But her hair's back to being clean and nice now, which is good. Luffy doesn't like it when Val looks upset or her hair isn't like it usually is. She takes good care of it, 'cause Makino used to do it for her, so if it's bad, that means something's wrong.

He thinks about her face after Sabo got taken, the polka dots of blood (not hers, he checked) and how her eyes got all empty and her hair was tangly, like Ace's used to get before they all made friends and became family. She gave him a hug back then like she always does after he woke up, let him cry 'cause he cries a lot sometimes when his emotions get too big, and she didn't tell him to stop like Ace does (Luffy forgives Ace because Ace is always hurting and that's why he doesn't cry, even though Luffy thinks he's getting better), but that empty look didn't go away. And then she was gone.

Gone and _dead, _at least that's what Ace said, when they were running around the burning trash heap and looking for her everywhere, when the air was hot and full of yucky smoke, when they had to beat up Bluejam and leave and then Dadan showed up, dragging Luffy away while Ace stayed behind.

Luffy remembers that Dadan got hurt real bad.

But Ace looked hurt worse, not on his head or anything but in his eyes, 'cause they looked empty again. Empty and dull and he kept trying to go back after they woke up again, even though he had to carry Aurelia because she wouldn't stop being a cat and she wouldn't move at all, and Luffy remembers that the night of the fire after they got back and slept Ace held onto him tight enough to hurt, but the look in his eyes didn't go away. It only got worse when by morning Dadan still wasn't out of bed, and Ace shouted he was going to go back to the terminal and find Val no matter what, that he'd kill every noble and Hightown guard he saw. That he'd get Sabo, too, because if Val was dead and Sabo was stolen than Sabo at least had to _know-_

The bandits tied him to a tree.

Luffy couldn't stop crying because he couldn't imagine Val dead. Val, his first friend, his first anything, his first_ everything, _the person who cuddled him and always gives him hugs and ran with him and never let him get left behind, always made him laugh with her weird jokes and wanted to see the whole world. Val, his family, his _nakama, _gone forever.

Sabo gone, and now this?

Luffy felt so lost and angry and _sad, _he couldn't even talk or scream, couldn't even think, just cried and cried.

But she's here now, not dead, and she'll never die ever. Luffy's gonna make her promise as soon as she wakes up. But right now she's shivering in the cold air and Ilirya's making more rumbly noises and that won't do. Luffy trots over, yawning wide (trying to keep quiet with it so he doesn't wake Val up, Ilirya would prolly get super angry then), and then he drops to the ground and scoots back against her on his side, his back to her front, lifting one of her arms so it curls around him instead. It's _much _warmer this way, and the panic Luffy's had in him since he woke up and saw her leave _(again, not again) _quiets.

Ran goes soft and fluffy and curls up in front of Luffy, and then Luffy has Val at his back and Ran at his front. He usually wants everyone there when they cuddle (the more the merrier!) but right now, he thinks he just wants it like this.

The moon and stars are bright and the air is cold, so he closes his eyes, yawns and hugs Ran tighter to his chest, nestles back against Val's warm front until he can feel the puff of her breath on his neck.

He starts falling asleep again, fast, and he's really tired. He feels something _big _curling around him, warm and scaly and fluffy, comforting and really familiar.

_Ilirya, _he thinks, happy.

And then everything is perfect. He falls asleep.

—

—

—

—

—

**Notes:**

(Hello, lovely readers. This is the first new chapter posted since the edits. Hello! :)

I did a bunch of editing for quality. I also put in my authors notes (a little more difficult to seed in than they are on ao3), slightly altered for posterity.

And I'm here. This is me! Hi! Thank you so much for reading Valentine's story, and I can't even say how much I appreciate all your support. I really love hearing my readers, listening to what y'all think and what you're enjoying, so if you want to let me know what you like... well, then I may have a better idea of wha to focus on in the future!

...Onto the original note.)

Shorter chapter because I really, really had to end it there. B)

There's a lot of unanswered questions in this one (and I'm not just talking about the rhetorical ones I seeded into the actual story). Trust me when I say that they do have answers, and those answers will be dispensed in time.

That being said. Any thoughts? Any predictions or guesses? Were you surprised? I certainly hope so. Plot is progressing at a truly breakneck speed... but I do promise that there's definitely going to be some downtime. Soonish. I have so many fun plans.

Ooh, I'm excited. I'd really love to hear you guys' thoughts on this one. :)

(And before you ask, yes. Luffy POV was so fun to write! ^u^)


	7. Chapter 7: Echo

Valentine is awake.

Valentine is awake, and her first thought is _what the fuck? _

First she feels her fingers - _warm - _and her toes (slightly colder than she'd like), the familiar weight and warmth of someone in her arms. She's laying on her side, on the ground, and she's spooning someone. Wet clover is plastered uncomfortably against her bare arms, feet, and every other inch of exposed skin touching the ground.

And then she feels the sunlight on her skin, the breeze playing over her hair, and hears the twittering of very immediate birdsong. Immediate as in _nearby, _and nearby as in _perhaps twenty feet away. _

She makes a tired, confused noise. Something akin to _ghrk? _It's muffled into Luffy's hair. Because of _course _it's Luffy who she's spooning. Who else would it be?

_Okay, wait. Luffy's with me. Stop. Rewind. _

Her mind strains. She remembers… getting Sabo back, of course. Crying until her brain was practically leaking out through her ears. Reuniting with Ace and Luffy. Crying some more. Sleeping? Yes. And then…

She inhales sharply.

Running. The meadow. The…

Her breath rasps in her chest, and she has to jerk her face to the side, pressing into the clover below so she doesn't cough all over Luffy's hair. Her head throbs, and _god, _it feels like she's sleeping off a hangover. Not that she can even drink. She's nine.

Okay, wait. She remembers what happened. Up until a certain point, anyways. But how the hell did _Luffy _get here?

Restless, anxious for answers, she extracts her limbs and general person from Luffy's tight grip (he groans in protest but he'll just have to _deal _with it, she's having a crisis here!) and leans up, squinting bleary eyes around the clearing to scan her surroundings.

She is definitely smack dab in the middle of the clover meadow. (Her stomach gives a gurgling protest in the form of a grumble, and she'd shush it if she thought it would listen, but it wouldn't, so she just ignores it.) The trees fringing the perimeter are tall and sparsely-leaved, budding with new growth (it _is _the tail end of winter, after all), and she can hear the calls of mid-morning animals, feel their ever-so-faint, near-undetectable whispers of hungry hunting-intent flush against her skin. The sun isn't too high, but it's definitely risen, shedding a fair amount of heat, breaking through the chill of morning air, painting the clover vibrant green, so - judging by its position in the sky - it must be late morningtime. Ish.

Ilirya is… she peers over to Luffy's still-sleeping, curled up form, and yep. He's cuddled with Ran, snuggling against Luffy's chest. They're both in the shape of rabbits, snoozing away.

Traitor.

"I know you're awake," she whispers, voice rasping from the sleep still lodged in it, and Ilirya cracks open a single, belligerent eyelid.

And Valentine blinks, because. Huh. The eyes are different. That's new.

Ilirya's visible eye - what would usually be the large, doe-eyed brown of a common lop-eared rabbit - looks a little… odd.

The black pupil (usually almost indiscernible from the iris), is surrounded by white. Not the pure white of a sclera (which is hidden in the typical rabbit eye, anyways), but a shade that reminds her of the cratered surface of the moon, silvery-gray and flecked with black specs.

But the white is only a thin layer. Like a ripple in a pond, the concentric circle of white/gray/moonish-stuff is encircled by a clearly delineated layer of chocolatey brown. The usual eye-color of a common rabbit.

"...The eyes are new," Valentine observes, and then WAIT, FUCK.

SHE ATE A DEVIL FRUIT.

She stills, and Ilirya must decide he wants to be a reassuring soul after seeing the look that steals over her face, because he posthaste extracts himself from Ran, shifts to a bird, and flits over to her shoulder.

"Can you- can you get big, please?" Valentine whispers, and Ilirya complies.

Before she can blink he's on the ground and a panther, slit-pupiled and golden eyed.

And even with the darkly furred, massive face hovering close to hers, a curling tail and warm body huddling reassuring around her own, warm breaths puffing on her face, all she can focus on is the eyes. Because the eyes are-

Whatever fucking magic that made the moon-circle appear in Ilirya's eye isn't restricted to rabbit-form. (Though, actually, she wouldn't have been surprised if that _had _been the case, knowing the mythological connections between rabbits and the moon- _anyways._) The silvery, black-flecked gray is layered the same around the slit-pupil of a cateye, all the more startling and unnatural looking against the gold of the natural iris and the contrast of the black fur.

Her hands rise to stroke along the soft velvet of one of Ilirya's ears as she _thinks. _

Okay. Devil fruit. What the hell did it do? What's happening to her?

Full body checkup, go.

She's still on the clover, seated, legs tucked to the side. She can sit up without assistance. That's a good sign.

Her head… doesn't really hurt as much as she thought it did when she was waking up. She's a little hazy-headed, but she thinks it comes from sleeping too long, if anything. In fact, her head feels _clear. _Weirdly clear. More straightforward, less muddled and distractible, more… stable.

Hair is… she reaches up a free hand to card her fingers through it. Miraculously clean and untangled? Alright, well. She's not sure she's gonna contribute that one to the devil fruit, but she'll think about it. (Future plans for her hair notwithstanding.)

Limbs and body? Fine. She's a very fast healer, so all her cuts and bruises from the battle with Bluejam a few days ago (was that _really _a few days ago?) are all at least closed up and turning yellow (respectively), and the bandages under her clothes are still in place. She wiggles her toes and- winces. Yeah, she'll need to wrap those.

Mouth tastes gross and eyes are a bit gummy from sleep, but that can be quickly fixed by a toothbrush and an eye rub respectively. She puts the former on her to-do list and swiftly executes the latter, reaching up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with a soft sigh through her nose. Alright, well, her fingers are working perfectly fine. She can cross that one off the list.

Her senses seem to be good. If a bit sharp, actually, though that's probably just because everything was so muddled when Sabo was gone. The contrast is making each rustle of the clover and distant call of the jungle animals seem incredibly crisp, the sensations on her skin bright and attention-drawing, and the colors around her oddly vibrant. The hearing is a little disconcerting, though. She can hear the tigers in the trees.

Anyways. She sighs out through her nose, offbalance, but what puts her _more _offbalance is the fact that she feels… not horrible?

She distantly remembers the shattered and frayed edges she had in the night, the memories that slit her mind when she gazed upwards into the stars. She doesn't focus on them (what, honestly, would be the point?) but she doesn't… she…

She feels surprisingly fine and it's freaking her out.

Does this have something to do with the devil fruit she ate?

_...Speaking of. _She gazes around surreptitiously, eyes roving over the clover to search for a white peach (that's what it was, wasn't it?), what should be an obvious splotch against the green. She looks for several tense seconds - peering over the edge of Luffy, just in case it's hiding there - but she doesn't catch a glimpse of it.

Great.

It's gone.

She remembers taking a bite. She _knows _she took a bite, remembers the sensation of her teeth breaking through the slick and swelling exoskeleton of the revolting thing, and the _taste- _

That would explain the bad taste in her mouth, actually.

Anyways, she remembers taking a bite. She thinks she might've dropped it after? It tasted so bad. And then after that…

Nothing.

Well. She's still alive, so that should count for something. Nothing came to pick her off while it was just her and Ilirya huddled in the middle of the clover meadow (she assumes), after she… fell asleep? Well, she has no idea what effects the devil fruit wreaked on her body. For all she knows, she's completely different now, and she dropped into a temporary-coma last night to accommodate changes in her cellular structure. (She quells the sharp and immediate stab of panic.)

"Thanks for keeping me warm," she murmurs to Ilirya, then has to stifle a tick in her brow as Ilirya jerks back, velvety nose crinkling, as she breathes on his face.

"Don't say a word," she warns lowly, poorly stifling a flush and ignoring Ilirya's catlike grin as she rises to her feet. Her legs wobble for a moment, but she stabilizes easily, standing strong, breathing in and out (through her nose) while she keeps her mouth firmly shut.

She needs a toothbrush. Stat.

So of course, Luffy, the boy of perfect timing, chooses that particular moment to wake up.

Valentine makes a stifled noise of frustration as she feels him brighten, flickering out of the muddled blurriness of sleep. He stirs, cuddling closer to Ran, then stiffens.

"...Val?" Luffy calls out, plaintive, eyes still squinched shut, and Valentine's heart melts.

"I'm here, Luffy," she murmurs, sinking to her knees in the clover and running a gentle hand over his chubby cheek, his ruffled hair. There's a single clover tucked away in the bird's nest of black, and she gently plucks it out, moves to flick it away-

Her lips purse. It's a four-leaf clover.

Luffy's eyes are opening, now, and he's yawning, sitting up, dragging a dozy Ran with him (the only reason neither of them have chattered her and Ilirya's ears off, by now, she'd wager, is the sleepiness: practically the only way to quiet the two of them), rubbing at his eyes. He's holding Ran to his chest much like any other child would clutch a stuffed rabbit as he yawns, eyes watering, and it's _adorable. _

"...I have so many questions," Valentine murmurs, half to herself and under her breath, tone low and voice dry. Because seriously, how the _hell _did Luffy get here?

"Followed you," Luffy says promptly.

...Did she ask that question out loud? "You followed me?"

"Yeah. Followed you 'cause I saw you leave and then I couldn't find you but I figured out where you were so I came here. And I was right! I thought you'd be harder to find 'cause you're usually so sneaky, but 'lirya was guarding you so you were easy to spot."

Valentine blinks. Processing. She absently notes that Ran is oddly content to be quiet.

"Huh. Your eyes are like Ilirya's, now." Luffy observes, peering over at her. He nods sagely.

_"What?" _

"I never saw it before, but last night, when 'lirya had those antlers-" Luffy mimes the 'antlers' rather adorably, thumbs to his temples and the rest of his fingers wiggling away from his head, "-his eyes got super weird too! So now I guess they're stuck that way."

_Why did Ilirya shift back to being a deer last night? Why _that's _a good form for night guarding, I have no idea. _"Good to know, Luffy," she murmurs, mind flying at a thousand miles a minute.

_Wait- my EYES? _

"Wait wait wait, what do you mean _stuck that way? _What do they look like?" she's a little frantic, scooting closer to Luffy involuntarily, hands fluttering, eyes widening as if perhaps, if Luffy can see them better, he'll reconsider his observation. Ran squirms in Luffy's arms, shifts from twitchy-nosed rabbit to teeny doormouse, scurries up his arm to perch on his shoulder and gaze keenly into Valentine's widened eyes, expression (if mice can even _have _expressions) inscrutable.

(They don't _feel _any different. Do they?)

Luffy makes an impatient noise, clambering to his feet, Ran hanging onto his shoulder and squeaking her affront. Valentine scrambles to her feet along with him, eyes still wide, nervously waiting for Luffy's judgement.

"Well?" she asks. If her voice is tinged with panic, everyone else is too polite (or doesn't care) to mention it.

"They're like Ilirya's," Ran says, a squeaking soprano after a short spell of fraught silence. It's matter of fact, and Luffy nods his emphatic agreement.

"There's a shiny moon-bit, 'round the black dot in the middle," he adds. "The rest of your eye went…" Luffy tilts his head to the left, the right. "Outside the moony part. That part's still like Makino's!"

Luffy smiles wide, even as Valentine's heart sinks like a stone, because oh no. Oh _no. _

Has she lost her mother's eyes?

"I need a mirror," she whispers, but her voice cracks. _It's alright, _Ilirya whispers, a ferret wound reassuringly around her neck, but she can't even _look _at him, can't bear to see a mirror image of the eyes that are now apparently irreversibly embedded in her skull.

_What the hell is this devil fruit? _she thinks to herself, savagely and angrily, tinged with grief, and the answer comes to her with dizzying, immediate certainty, the knowledge simply _there. _

_Ekō ekō no mi. _

…The Echo Echo Fruit.

It wells up from inside her, this _fact, _ironclad and fixed. She chokes on a hysterical laugh, much more deranged than she usually lets leak out of herself, and she's clutching at her arms in a self-imposed parody of a hug, trailing into chuckles, then choked silence, the outside world distant, irrelevant.

"-al? Val!"

She blinks, refocuses, and realizes Luffy is shaking at her shoulders, worried face and big black eyes peering close into hers, gazing up across the several inches that separate their height. He looks frowning and worried and that _won't _do.

"We're all good," she blurts, backing out of his grip, and the thing is? She's not even lying. She really does feel okay, even with the addition of new information that feels like somewhat of a cosmic joke layering into her brain like icing on the shitty cake.

Something has changed, because she's dealing with things… differently. Less like the emotionally unstable nine-year-old she is(?) and more like the adult she was(?), stable and moored, and that should be freaking her out but she's fine with it and _that's _freaking her out. Agh.

She likes it way fucking better than her crazy nine-year-old brain but she's not sure it was worth it.

"...Let's go back," she murmurs, untired and alert. She feels as if she's just woken up from a longer sleep than she needed, and now her mind is clear.

(She doesn't need to think about the devil fruit right now. She'll tell Luffy and Ace and Sabo later, after they've all shed the traumatic vestiges of this whole nightmarish few days, after they've pulled away from the sheer _immediacy _of the crisis. The boys don't deserve to have to deal with this bullshit of hers now, not after everything.

She'll keep it to herself until she has something she can really tell them.)

"Alright!" Luffy chirps, grabbing her hand, immediately accepting (and not caring at all about) her new eyes. She blinks, startled, nearly stumbling over her feet as his hand clasps hers, familiar and grounding, and he tows her across the clover, towards the forest and in the completely wrong direction.

She stifles a giggle, smiling, and gently tugs the both of them the opposite way.

* * *

Ace and Sabo are not pleased.

_Apparently, _Ace is extraordinarily tired of waking up with people gone and that worriedness transmogrifies into pure rage upon the reacquisition of said missing person (people?) during the late morning, because he yells at them. A lot. For a while. She'd rather not revisit the memory.

Sabo plays unintentional good cop, which is almost worse, because all he does is look tired and drained and give the both of them tight hugs. He doesn't say anything at all, wan and worried and relieved that they're even _here, _and that sends a pang of sharp guilt straight to her heart. She didn't even have him back for _one day _before she disappeared again. Typical.

And of course, they notice the eyes.

She knows they notice but they don't have the chance to say anything, because she clearly needs to brush her teeth and wash her face and change into real clothes and she flees to the upstairs bathroom as soon as Ace loses enough steam for her to do so, locking the door behind her.

As she brushes her teeth _(finally), _gently washes the last vestiges of makeup off her face (how'd that get so faded, anyways?), she gazes into the mirror, apprehensive.

_So. What are the damages? _

She stares for a beat. Another. Tears well up, gentle, brimming over, as she gazes into the mirror.

...It turns out the damages are pretty extensive.

Luffy wasn't lying when he said Valentine's eyes were like Ilirya's. They're practically identical, though the color of Ilirya's outside ring seems to shift depending on his form, matching the natural color of the iris of whatever animal he's in the shape of (and she knows this because Ilirya's perched on the sink, peering into the mirror same as her, flickering between form after form like flipping pages as he inspects the new eyes).

The deep brown that used to color the entirety of Valentine's irises - her mother's eyes, _Makino's _eyes - have been pushed to a thick outer layer. Her irises have effectively been divided into concentric rings: the 'moony' layer right outside the pupil, and her natural brown right outside that.

They take up about equal space, though the brown might take up a little more. She leans closer to the mirror, peering intently over the sink, and the odd, fibrous quality that all irises have up close shows the black specs for what they are; pitch-black gaps in the warp and weft of the silvery-gray, and fucking hell she has no idea how this is affecting her vision. Is she seeing things differently? She doesn't _think _so. Maybe? Does that mean the eyes are symbolic, then? Symbolic of _what? _

The border between the inner-layer and the outer-layer is even more unnatural seeming up close. The fibrous weave just _stops _being her familiar brown and starts being silver, the eye itself continuous (which means the new bit wasn't transplanted, no matter how she feels about it), the colors blocked out in a perfect circular line. She's faintly aware that some people have weird eyes here (hey, Mrs. Horton from the village has _yellow _eyes, and the meat-skewer seller that has all the beef Luffy likes has bright pink), but this is _weird. _(Even for a world like this.)

She's still relatively calm (thanks, altered-without-my-express-consent-brain!), so she's not hyperventilating, but she's off kilter.

_Not to mention that I have no idea what this fruit actually does. _She considers things evenly, flexing her fingers, still peering intently into the mirror. As she watches, her pupils dilate, stretching the silver and brown in odd, hypnotic ways. _The echo echo fruit. _

She considers the possibility that it may have to do with the echoes she's been getting of her past life.

Her first (and most obvious) thought seems… exceedingly plausible. But if that's all it does, why the eyes? And why was she getting those echoes _before _now? Do the effects of the fruit reach through time, somehow? She's not sure if that would even make sense...

She has truly, absolutely, no idea.

_At least my face is the same, _she thinks absently, pitifully grateful. Her face is like her mom's, heart-shaped with fine features (hey, the first time she saw the nose, she thought _shouldn't this be bigger? _but she didn't get to choose it). Her eyes are still overlarge, long-lashed and childish, new layout strange and striking against her coloration. Her hair (just like Makino's in everything except color, two long bangs framing her face, the rest falling long and straight down her back) is the same. Her face is otherwise the same as it's been for almost a decade, if a bit drawn and stressed looking, still naturally pale and disconcertingly unfreckled, no matter how much time she spends in the sun. (Yet another difference.)

It's just-

It's not that her eyes look _ugly _now. But it's never been about beauty, with this new face (she can remember the villagers cooing over her, when she was younger, telling Makino what an angelic child she seemed to be, though those remarks trailed to a stop when Luffy arrived and they started making nuisances of themselves), because if she looks like her mom at all (the most beautiful woman on Dawn Island if not in the entire world), she's absently sure there's nothing to concern herself about. It's the fact that Valentine doesn't even have Makino's hair color, didn't have it to start with, that she had _one _thing definitively and purely of her mother that she saw every time she peered into a mirror, and now that's gone. Changed. Taken.

It's like a metaphor for all the things she's letting go. A pulse of doubt rattles through her, and she grips the edge of the sink in a white-knuckled grip, gritting her teeth. Was this really-

She startles and nearly knocks her knee against hard porcelain as someone raps at the door. "Val! There's some leftovers, if you're still hungry."

Ah. Sabo. She keeps eye-contact with the creature in the mirror, strange and alien, even more foreign with the loss of her eyes.

(She traces over her nose, her lips, the arch of her brow and the curve of her jaw. These, at least, she can still keep. Things she never knew she was taking for granted until one was taken from her.)

She doesn't quite manage to tear her eyes away from her reflection as she responds. "Yeah, gimme a second! I'll be right out."

* * *

Almost as soon as Valentine and Luffy inhale the leftovers from last night's dinner (the one she missed, go figure), Valentine cleverly squirreling away food from Luffy's insatiable gullet all the while, they unanimously decide to go back to Makino's. (If Valentine's assent comes a little too fast, a little too emphatic, nobody remarks on it.)

As they run, she thinks.

Dadan - who Valentine still hasn't seen - is bedridden, apparently, burned badly but on the mend. She honestly didn't tune in too much for the serious-sounding conversation Ace and Sabo were having over the breakfast table (too busy focusing on food), but she heard enough details to be aware that Dadan is injured and she's going to be fine. (Thank the heavens for small miracles.)

Her mind drifts. Running through the forest is stupidly soothing, for some reason, though whether that's because Luffy and Sabo and Ace are all around her or if it's due to something else, she has no idea. She's willing to bet quite a bit of money on the former, though. When Sabo was gone, it felt like something was _missing, _something utterly crucial and entirely necessary, like something she couldn't quite pinpoint was sitting wrongly in her head. Now that he's back, it feels good. Really good. They're all so _bright, _the three of them, and she hasn't really properly noticed it before. They radiate sheer conviction, the breadth of their dreams and desperate hopes, and it's utterly captivating, if barely-detectable. She's not sure how she hasn't spent more time noticing before now.

Anyways, whatever the hell her fruit is doing to her, she thinks she can rule out… uh… the transform-y ones. Zone? Zoan. Zoan and Logia. She thinks she'd know if she was… made of echoes, now, or something. Or made of an echoish creature. She doesn't _feel _any animalistic instincts, doesn't feel tempestuous or untamable. (Not beyond her usual, anyway.)

Her eyes are different, but hey. Luffy's fruit is a Paramecia, and it changed the structure of his entire body!

(…As she tries not to think about the possibilities, she shudders, a chill stroking over her spine.)

So. Paramecia, hm? Only the most stupidly diverse array of possible fruit abilities in the whole universe.

Figures that she wouldn't get something simple. No, she can't transform into a _dragon _or anything like that... something that straightforward and powerful would be too easy. She scowls, directs her thoughts ominously towards the greater universe at large. Just in case somebody's listening! Maybe they could throw her a bone.

Yeah, right.

"Oi, Val." Hm?

Ace voice. He's running near the front of the pack like usual, breathing even and controlled as his flats pound the ground. All their dæmons are running alongside them as wolves, gray and brown and black and dull gold (Aurelia included), though Valentine hesitates upon noticing that Ilirya is oddly, subtly in the center of the cluster.

"Wha?" She doesn't spare the breath on a longer answer. Running for an hour straight isn't terrible, exactly, but she doesn't enjoy getting too wordy during runs no matter the length. She can't really focus on speaking with the sensation of exertion pulsing through her.

(That being said, she has a bad feeling about this.)

"Spill it," Ace grinds out, matter-of-fact, not looking back at her. "Explain what you did. Everything. From the top."

_"Everything?" _Valentine is incredulous, but she can't help notice that Sabo and Luffy - running (in that order) behind Ace - are noticeably silent.

(Did they plan this?)

She's struck with the sudden wish that the run back to Foosha Village was a little less long. A whole hour of this? She might pass out in sheer self-preservation instinct.

"Yeah. With Sabo- that was _all _you. So spill it."

"...Not much to say," she growls out, trying to focus on the pounding of her (bandaged and boot-clad) feet against the ground, the rushing of wind past her face, the instinctual dodge-leap-duck of navigating the uneven, fierce terrain of the forest floor. Back in a tank top and shorts - pipe left in the hideout for safekeeping - she feels a little more herself. (Might help that she nearly coughed up a lung in laughter at Sabo's startled shout upon seeing the culmination of their life's work stuffed into the confines of the airborne hideout. It retrospect, the piles of gold might be a _little _unexpected if you're not aware of them beforehand. Just a little.)

Anyways, she wishes she had the excuse of her abilities being shitty enough that she can't multitask, but she's pretty sure she'd get laughed out of the whole forest if she tried to pull that one.

"Spill it," Ace repeats, firmer. He still hasn't looked back, but she can read the fight in the tense of his shoulders. (He's too easy to read. The way he reacts gives away what he's thinking, way too obvious. Especially with the sleeveless shirts he wears.)

_Unstoppable force, meet moveable object. _"I mean, there's not much to tell," she demurs, breathing out, caving. _Redirect. Downplay. Maybe he'll let it go. _

"Like hell," Ace spits out, the first hint that he's not in harmony with the perfectly-calm aura he's projecting. "You got Sabo back. Even though I was… you pulled a damn _heist, _from what Sabo told me."

Valentine shoots the back of Sabo's head a dirty look. (The blond curls of which are visible because he's completely sans-top hat. It's a jarring look on him, wearing one of Ace's spare red tank tops and a pair of dark shorts, not his usual blue and white layers. He's wearing a spare pair of ill-fitting bandit boots, too, his old clothes utterly lost, left behind and burned at the altar of escape, and he looks oddly vulnerable without them, almost like a stranger, if she discounts the fact that she simply _knows _it's Sabo, could find him and Halia in a half-second in a dark room.

But she digresses.)

"Wasn't a heist," she grumbles, even as Luffy shouts out _wow, cool! What's a heist!_, leaping up and past Sabo in his excitement.

"What I wanna know," Sabo says quietly, dropping back to draw even with her, speaking over Luffy's excited yelling. "Is how you got me out."

Valentine exhales slowly, tuning out the sound of Ace short-temperedly answering Luffy's barrage of questions. "You were there, Sabo. You know how it went."

"I mean, I get that you pretended to be a noble," Sabo says. "But I don't get exactly _how-" _

"Simple plan," Valentine interrupts, flatly controlled, breathing even, arms and legs pumping as she and Sabo run in tandem. "Your mother doesn't know what I look like. If there's any pictures of us in the paper, from our dine'n'dashes, my most recognizable characteristic - my hair color - is in black and white anyways, so she wouldn't be able to recognize that, either. Your father might, since he's seen us more than once, so I needed to go when he'd be away, which he always is from the hours of ten-AM to eleven-thirty-AM. I got the dress from my usual contact in Edge Town, spent the night there and prepped. Got the makeup styles and up-to-date fashion from a magazine at our last dine'n'dash. The rest is plenty of research, lots of planning, accumulation of resources, and good acting. The end."

She distantly realizes that Ace and Luffy, scant feet ahead of them, have gone silent, listening. The noises of the forest gently fill the ballooning silence.

"...And that's it," she finishes, lamely.

"What the- that doesn't explain anything at all!" Luffy blurts, nearly tripping over himself as he glances over his shoulder to shoot her a befuddled look. "Sabo said you were all dressed up, and that you tricked his mom! And the- the fire! How'd you do that?"

"Acting, Luffy," she says, more gently than before, because, well. It's Luffy. "And I was never _ in _the Gray Terminal during the fire. I was on the other side of the wall the whole time."

She wishes distantly she could close her eyes - maybe it'd help her think straight - but for better or for worse, the distraction of the run is thinning her filter and making her more honest.

"But how did you know you had to?" says Ace, and she knows, instantly, that this is the question he really wants the answer to. His tone is brash, never hiding his intent, because for all his posturing, Ace is honest. "Why? How did you know that Sabo was…"

_...That Sabo was miserable, _she finishes in her head, brief spike of panic fading as realization dawns. _Ah. _

"It's not your fault, Ace," she says, cutting past the muddled and murky fringes, and Ace's shoulders tense. (She catches Sabo's eyes widening in her peripheral.)

She can practically hear Ace's hackles rising, his whole countenance puffing up like a belligerent toad. "I didn't-"

"And I didn't know for sure," Valentine interrupts, cutting off his needless justifications at the pass, and it's not a lie. "I mean. I thought he might. But the _reason _I went was that…" she takes a breath, tries her best to verbalize what she's thinking. "It should always be _Sabo's _choice. When he got taken back to hightown, he didn't go back on his own. Even if I had gotten there and Sabo told me to leave and it had all been for nothing… at least then I'd know. I'd know it was him deciding."

_My heart wouldn't have survived, obviously. But it's not my decision where he's supposed to be. The only choice I get to make is whether or not I can pull off giving him the option. _

"...I'm such a damn idiot," Ace mutters after a brief spell of silence, quietly, darkly, self-hatred in his voice, like it's fact, and it makes her blood boil.

"You're no more of an idiot than I am," Sabo says immediately after, even as Valentine opens her mouth to say _um, I think the hell not. _Sabo's tone grows ever-darker as he runs, and he's still in line with Valentine so she can see the bleak expression stealing over his face, the self-reprimand, the despair. _"I'm _the one who really thought my father was telling the truth when he said you wouldn't be harmed. After what you told me about Porchemy and Bluejam…"

_Ah, _Valentine thinks to herself numbly. _I guess he knows I killed Porchemy, then. _

"That doesn't matter, Sabo," Ace says. "I'm just- you know what I said earlier. I mean it."

"Yeah, Ace. I remember." Sabo brightens fractionally, thoughtful hum carrying over Luffy's demands to know what they talked about before. "But honestly, if you look at it from a certain angle, I'm glad it happened this way."

Valentine cuts her gaze to the side, staring at a smiling Sabo like he's crazy. And he very well _might _be, saying something like that.

"Whaddaya mean, Sabo?" Luffy, barrage (thankfully) ended, glad that they're all here and uncaring of how it came to be. He holds no judgement in his tone, only blatant curiosity.

"Well, I met someone important, the night of the fire. I think it changed how I want to fulfill my dream." Sabo is smiling absently, expression gone distant and dreamy as he runs.

"Your _dream?" _Ace sounds incredulous. And a little bit offended. (Judging by how much stress this whole disaster has brought him, that isn't surprising.)

"Yeah." Sabo's voice is filled with purpose, serene and utterly certain. "I'm going to be a revolutionary."

_...Ah, _Valentine thinks awkwardly, as Ace explodes in a barrage of demanding questions and Luffy starts talking a mile a minute. _I think. I should have expected this? _

"-but who did you _meet, _Sabo?" Ace says, frustrated, and-

"He said his name was Dragon. Leader of the revolutionary army. He saved my life, you know? We didn't talk for long, but it's like- everything he said, I knew he'd spent his life fighting for. And I wanna fight that fight too."

"As long as you're happy, Sabo," Valentine says, which is the complete sum total of her opinion on the matter.

"But you- you don't even know who he is!" Ace sounds incredulous. "He could have- he could have an earthworm dæmon, or something!"

"Don't stereotype," Valentine shoots at him, and though her tone is light, she's utterly serious. (Hey, Makino's dæmon is a _sugar glider, _and Makino verbally shamed a vice admiral of the marines out of their little podunk village. He should know by now not to judge a dæmon by its appearance.)

Ace looks over his shoulder and sticks his tongue out at her, pulling at his lower eyelid with a fingertip. _Bleh. _

"His dæmon was a gorilla, actually," Sabo says, faux-snootily. "So I don't think I have to worry about his leadership skills, thanks."

"A gorilla?" Luffy pipes up, sounding surprisingly thoughtful.

"Yeah."

"Was it all silvery on the back? Not super snarly or anything?"

Sabo narrows his eyes suspiciously. "Yyyyess…?"

"Huh." Luffy's brief bout of thoughtfulness concludes as soon as it began. "I think that's my dad."

_"WHAT?" _

Ace and Sabo's overlapping shouts are as deafening as they are incredulous, rebounding through the whole expanse of the jungle like a sonic boom. (Valentine winces as the sound echoes in her ears, ducking a flyaway branch heading straight for her face.)

"I dunno. I don't remember much from when I was super small, but I totally remember a gorilla. Could be a different guy, though!" Luffy is back to grinning cheerfully, utterly out-of-breath, keeping his pace even with Ace's through sheer willpower. (How Luffy manages with those short legs of his, Valentine will never know.)

"...I really need to think about this," Sabo says as he runs, somewhat woozily, but not in the vein of reconsideration. More in the vein of _what the hell am I getting myself into? _

"We can just ask Garp next time he's here," Valentine says, very practically. The fact that she's perfectly aware that Dragon is indeed Luffy's father (though she didn't expect him to _know, _what the hell) doesn't bear mentioning. Hey, if Luffy remembers his father's dæmon (and not his actual father himself, yowch), that's entirely his prerogative.

"The whole world's gone crazy," Ace mutters, but it's less _agh _and more _how did I get stuck with you idiots? _in that affectionate way he always adopts. (Valentine can't control the small smirk that sneaks over her face. Neither can Sabo, from what she catches in her peripheral.)

"Well, we've got time to figure it out," Valentine says, extremely glad that the attention is off her (and not in a hurry to reclaim it). "Although I don't think we should go back to hightown for a while. Even the terminal is a risk. Your family is probably still gonna be looking for you, Sabo."

"We'll just have to get strong enough that we can beat up anybody they throw at us." There's a gritty edge of devil-may-care invincibility in Ace's voice, though it's tempered (surely) by recent experience.

_How long will it take him to start thinking that things can be solved by something other than strength? _she thinks fondly, smiling despite herself as she runs. _A little older than the age of eleven, maybe. I'll give it a few years. _

"Getting that strong might take a while," Sabo says, not arguing the point, a hint of selfconsciousness in his voice. "You guys don't have to…"

"We gotta get strong anyways," Luffy says. "Super duper strong. Stronger than everyone else! It won't take too long, Sabo, don't worry. We'll get really strong really fast and then we can go again whenever we want."

_...Well. Who knows, maybe it really _is _that simple, _she thinks. Sabo snorts, smiling wide, but then again, they all are.

"Until then," Valentine says, "I think we're gonna need to spend most of our time in the forest. During the summertime, especially, when we can't layer up and we're more recognizable." _Though I have a small plan for making myself a little less visible, actually. _"We might all do well to change our styles a little," she adds.

(The latter sentence is said dryly, without much hope or expectation of compliance.)

Their conversation trails into comfortable silence, and for perhaps seven seconds, Valentine thinks that she might've really made it through the worst of it. And then-

"We were so worried about you, Sabo!" Luffy pipes up, breaking the silence unrepentantly, sounding like he's been holding this back for a while. Ran yips her agreement. "Val said she was gonna go get you, but then she left on her own! And we thought she… we thought was gone, too, and she died in the fire." Valentine can hear the tears that have come to Luffy's eyes coloring his voice. "But you guys came back! I'm so glad you're here now. Never leave again, okay?"

Luffy says this tearfully, but with simple, straightforward command, utterly serious, and the complete expectation of being answered in turn.

"...Alright, Luffy," Sabo says, tone sobering and edged with something she can't define. "I'll do my best."

"And Val!" She blinks, startled, as Luffy turns around, making eye-contact with her and running backwards just long enough to say-

"You have to _promise _me. Never die, okay?"

She's staring at the back of Luffy's head by the time she's processed what he's saying, gaping in shock, blinking rapidly.

"...Well, you heard him," she hears Sabo say, and her head jerks to the side as she looks to him, startled. He's looking at her, face honest, unapologetic. "You gotta promise."

"Why don't we all promise," she says, and despite her best efforts, the words sound as off-kilter as she feels.

"I swear!" Luffy shouts, immediate, punctuating his promise with a leap. "I _swear! _I'll never die, not ever! I'm gonna be the pirate king, and I'll make sure my family _never _dies!"

Valentine has to purse her lips to hold back her emotion and amusement both, still running.

"I'm never gonna die, of course," Sabo says, matter-of-fact, fresh from the aftermath of his near-death. "How could I leave Val to look after Luffy on her own?"

_"Hey." _Ace sounds affronted, but Valentine giggles, which - by the grin Sabo shoots her - she thinks might have been the point. There's fizziness filling the air, bubbling and gold, electric.

"Obviously," Ace adds, still in the lead, staring ahead, "I don't have anything to worry about. _ I'm _not gonna die. I'm too busy worrying about you three."

Valentine stays quiet.

She reflexively contorts out of the way of the pointed elbow Sabo jabs at her side, and she can't for the life of her tell what expression she's got on her face. "I promise," she says, unsure if she's lying. "I don't plan on dying," she says, more firmly, "and I'll do everything I can to stay alive."

"Huh," Sabo mutters, "that's reassuring."

Nonetheless, the promise is made.

(She jabs back at him, their well-worn dance, and Ace throws in something sarcastic, Luffy jumps in playfully-)

* * *

For better or for worse, some very important questions _(how did you know you'd need to plan ahead in the first place?) _go unasked, and - by consequence - unanswered.

* * *

(She remembers the gorillas. Hidden away in a section of the forest she and Luffy never go to, not because they're still too weak - they're leagues stronger, now, she's pretty sure they can handle some monkeys - but because they don't want to say the wrong thing and mess up. All of them dignified, quietly and honestly, but undeniably wild, too: something of the forest within them, utterly a part of them, inextractable.

Valentine wonders if this is where Monkey D. Dragon got his dæmon's shape.)

* * *

Makino, of course, knows that something has changed the second they tumble through the door.

Makino is standing behind the familiar bar polishing glasses, and (hearing their usual chatter as they push through saloon-style open air batwing doors, tromping in), she looks up, warm smile on her face-

"Welcome back," Makino says, automatic, but her smile has faded fractionally and her eyes keep flicking from Sabo's clothes to Valentine's eyes, aware and intelligent.

Realistically, Valentine didn't expect that the changes would go unnoticed, but having their cover blown a scant second after walking through the door is a bit soon.

"Food?" Luffy says, hopeful, and the beat of silence breaks, Makino's smile brightening again as she sweeps into the kitchen with a playful remark tossed over her shoulder, and they funnel after her, all questions pushed aside for later.

* * *

Luffy is, as usual, banished from 'helping' in the kitchen mere minutes after he's stepped into it. (His banishment is on charges of endangerment and refusal to cease and desist. And also because he managed to light an onion on fire. The usual.)

Ace and Sabo stick around a little longer, both armed with serviceable skills (chopping vegetables, they can do, no matter the faces they tend to make while doing it), but a while later, Makino tells the both of them to go out and make sure Luffy isn't breaking anything in the bar that can't be repaired.

They funnel out without protesting, and finally, Valentine and Makino are alone.

For several long minutes, the kitchen is filled with the sound and smell of meat sizzling in the pan, the scents of stir fried broccoli and green beans wafting through the air. Valentine relaxes by inches, yielding to the familiarity, to the feeling of _home, _and it's only then that Makino speaks.

"What happened?" Makino says quietly, spatula in hand, brown eyes kind.

Valentine, whose eyes have changed, whose _everything _has changed, can't bear to look. "A lotta stuff." Her voice is quiet and raspy.

She turns to her mom and falls into the waiting hug, grasping tightly, pressing her face against Makino's torso. The meat sizzles over the burner in the background and she's hugging her mom, safe in the kitchen, and Sabo is alive. Sabo isn't gone. Sabo is _here. _She's chest-height to Makino, now, knows that by the time she's fifteen she may well grow to or past Makino's modest 5'4, but she can't imagine outgrowing her mom, can't imagine outgrowing these hugs, a refuge.

"Oh, my child," Makino whispers, stroking over Valentine's hair. "Have I let you stray too far?"

Makino's hands are finely trembling against her hair. To Valentine, this is a shout, a quiet plea, because her mom never - _never _\- trembles. She's not afraid to cry, never afraid to shed tears (doesn't see it as a weakness and Valentine's heart overflows with love for her), but she doesn't tremble. (And maybe Makino can feel what a close call this was, now close they came to falling apart. Maybe.)

"No," Valentine whispers, all her steadfast solitude crumbling in the arms of her mother. "I- the eyes are just- I ate a devil fruit, like Luffy did-"

"The color of your eyes isn't what worries me," Makino murmurs, face pressed to Valentine's hair, muffled. "No matter the color of your eyes, you're still _you. _What worries me is that you seem… so hurt, darling. Like you've gotten older in just a few days."

Valentine swallows. "Sabo got… taken. I had to get him back. Nobody got… nobody got hurt worse than usual. It was just… hard."

For all that Valentine's choked up, her words are carefully chosen.

Her mother's voice is gentle. "Did you have to?"

"Yes."

She is completely sure.

This surety is what makes Makino exhale, sigh, breathe in and out slowly and with feeling.

Every word she utters thereafter sinks into Valentine's chest like an arrow.

"Then I'm proud of you."

Valentine's breath hitches.

"My strange, wonderful daughter… you've always been wise beyond your years. No- don't deny it." Makino smothers a teary laugh against Valentine's small shoulder at her instinctual twitch, the urge to deflect. "Truly, oddly old-souled. From the moment you came back from the woods, I knew you were changing, losing your dependence on me. And I've tried so hard to be okay with that." A deep, shuddering breath. "I want you to be strong, Valentine. I want you to laugh, to be _happy, _more than anything else, but I also want you to know… that you are loved. That I love you so, so much."

Valentine can't even begin to speak.

"So it's okay to lean on me, alright? You've told me your plans, I know you'll be leaving - better than taking over this old bar, anyways - but you're still young. Rely on me a little, okay?"

* * *

The first time she tries to take a bath, she nearly drowns herself.

She's full from stir fry and (most of the) vegetables, the rest of the afternoon bled away simply roaming around the village with Ace and Sabo and Luffy, meandering through the market in their usual group of four. Her and Luffy (mostly the latter) gleefully took the lead, showing off the best springtime spots for peoplewatching, the best stalls for spiced shish-kebabs (Valentine waves sheepishly at Mr. McQueeney, a man who knows _very _well of the antics they tend to trend towards), the quickest shortcuts and approximate layout of the ever-shifting marketplace.

But the sun sunk over the horizon, orange and red and yellow and beautiful. They watched it from the top of the best windmill in town, chattering and quiet in turns, until Mrs. Mendleson came out of her house with her broom and shook it at them and they had to pull a graceful retreat.

Anyways. Now it's time for her bath.

She dips a foot - her toe, _one toe - _into the still, steaming water. A half second later, she's jerked back, slipped, and nearly bashed her head open on the sink.

"Valentine?" Makino's voice. Hazy and distant, getting louder as she comes to the bathroom door. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Valentine manages, laying on her back on the slick tile, heartbeat rabbiting in her chest, Ilirya a coral snake curled up somewhere in the vicinity of her left boob. Non-boob. (Again, she's _nine. _Even _she _slips up in her head and forgets she's a damn nine-year-old.) She just _barely _didn't hit her head, managed to contort the right way through the air in time, because-

The second she dipped her foot into the water, it felt like she turned deaf, dumb, and blind. That first one especially.

When she jerked it back out her senses returned immediately, but even _that _was startling. Startling enough that she overbalanced, slipped on the tile floor, pulled a Luffy, and tripped.

(See, here's something she now knows:

Her hearing changed when she ate the echo echo fruit. She had been developing the hunch, for the _day _she's had it - awareness of the alterations percolating in the back of her mind - that it might be just a general sensory boost, but nope, _definitely _not. Her sight may be just a bit sharper, her nerves a bit more sensitive (and damn it all, that'll be hell on her pain tolerance), but her hearing? _That's _what's changed the most. If her little dip in the bath taught her anything, it's that.

With dawning realization, she puts a tally mark in the _connected to sound? _column of 'what does my devil fruit do?: echo echo edition.')

"Hey, Mom?" Valentine calls out. This is… a little embarrassing, and her cheeks are tinting pink, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Yeah, hon?" Makino's return shout is muffled through the door.

Valentine's voice is raised, hopefully enough to carry through the door and down the hall. "Can you help me wash my hair, please?"

* * *

The two twin beds pushed together in the backroom fit the four of them, but it's cramped.

Valentine gets the inkling that Sabo and Ace will split off soon (they're getting to that tween-ish age, less and less cuddly child with every passing day, to her abject dismay), but for now, they're all stuck to each other like glue. It's the trauma, surely, and she doesn't argue with all the physical contact (not that she's usually first in line) because honestly? She's pretty sure she needs it too.

Apparently she's the best big spoon of all time, because Luffy catches Ace in a flying tackle when he tries to claim the spot, shouting a war cry.

Skirting around the other two wrestling boys (ignoring the cries of _get the hell of me, Luffy, I was just walking towards the damn bed! _and _you'll never win!_), Sabo jumps onto the mattress, stretches with a yawn, and settles under the covers with his back against Valentine's front.

Valentine is almost equal to Ace and Sabo in height, at this point (a poor overall height advantage in the long-run, yes, but for now, she's golden), so she has to scoot up the bed a little to settle Sabo's blond curls under her chin.

They're scratchy. She absently imagines how the texture will change if he grows them out. (She has no doubt that the covers will be long kicked-off by morning. That is, assuming they don't go immediately flying when Luffy cannonballs himself onto the bed.)

"...I'm glad to be back," Sabo murmurs, quiet, still leaning back gingerly. (But hey, he's the one who finagled his way into being the little spoon, isn't he? That's certainly progress.)

"We're glad to have you," Valentine whispers, meaning every word.

To the sound of Sabo's breathing and Ace and Luffy's playfighting, to the background symphony of her own new uncertainties, unanswered questions waiting to be found, growing ever more distant, she closes her eyes.

—

—

—

**Notes:**

[Valentine: spend 60% of the chapter worrying about your spiffy new eyes.]

[Author: spend the whole chapter alternating between lampshading and character freakouts.]

...All jokes aside, this chapter was very transitory. It's less 'exciting things' and more 'some answers to a few of your questions,' but it really was necessary.

And with this, we've finally gotten through with the Sabo Retrieval Arc! Which isn't to say Sabo stuff is over and done with, mind you (keep in mind possible aftermath of things going the way they did), but we're through with the Really Bad Week.

(Also, this chapter had a more humorous tone than the past few chapters have. I think that's really Val's doing. She really needs a break, yanno? Nobody can spend too long focusing only on serious or sad things.)


	8. Chapter 8: Shoe

Despite the momentous, near-unbelievable changes enacted on all their lives, things return to a semblance of a rhythm.

They stay in the village for two whole weeks after that (something for which Valentine is silently, endlessly grateful). In that span, there are several very important changes.

* * *

Makino teaches her, step by step, how to weave her hair into a fishtail.

It's a bit more complex than a braid, symmetrical and neat looking, wending from her crown to the feathery tips of her hair. She prefers it over the former, simply because it's more stable, even if it takes longer and she's sure it'll take many years to perfect doing it on her own, her hands now fumbling, imperfect and clumsy.

Valentine has deft hands, quick from combat and thievery, but in this, her mother's are quicker; skilled and practiced, near mesmerizing in their long-perfected movements, multitasking. Valentine loves the feeling of fingers in her hair: the rhythmic tug and pull, the smoothly woven strands, the weight of it… it feels nice.

Makino gets her first kerchief from the fabric store down the road. Mr. Tells - who's been selling smaller squares for kerchiefs and other yards of different fabrics for sewing projects to Makino for longer than Valentine's been alive - waves Makino off when she tries to pay, lashes fluttering much like the dusty wings of the silkmoth on his lapel. _No trouble, dear, _he demurs, handing over the scrap of red, and once again, Valentine is reminded of exactly how much this village loves her mom, that once, years ago, Makino was a child herself, running errands for her golden-spider mother and curling-horns father, bright-eyed and young.

(Valentine knows that she herself is an inexact and flawed mirror image of that same shining picture.)

The kerchief itself is a deep, understated crimson, stiff cotton that'll surely be worn soft with age, near enough to her favorite color to be within spitting distance but not so close as to be unduly eye catching. The first time she has her hair plaited, pinned up and gathered into a knot at the base of her skull, bangs hanging loose, her new kerchief tied and covering everything, she looks in the mirror and _stares. _

Holy hell, she looks like a mini-mom.

Makino - who has basically done everything at this point, from the fishtail to the pinning - looks like she can't decide whether to be proud, embarrassed, or run to the den-den mushi photography shop and shell out a truly obscene quantity of money to capture this moment forever.

"Thanks, mom," Valentine whispers, leaning back affectionately against the softness of Makino behind her, and Makino's fretting hands squeeze reassuringly on Valentine's shoulders, her conflicted smile melting into something more sincere.

* * *

"Your _hair," _Ace blurts.

Ace, of all people. "What about it?" Valentine fires back, doors to the bar swinging shut behind her, hand coming up to worry at the fabric of her kerchief in a rare bout of selfconsciousness. It looks… a bit odd with her usual (matching red) scrappy tank top and her shorts, but she's thinking about changing that, too. (All things in time.)

The boys have been waiting, impatient, for the past five minutes or so (the hair took a little longer than expected), and they're all _staring. _

"It's- I mean- where did it all _go?" _Ace is peering at her head suspiciously, eyes narrowed. It seems that he's searching for any trace of the usual seemingly-endless waterfall of it from under the fabric.

"I think it looks nice," Sabo puts diplomatically, a thoughtful look on his face, stroking his chin.

"I like it better when I can grab it," Luffy says bluntly, peering over on his tiptoes. He ducks around behind her to prod at the back of her head, giggles at the coiled braid he finds there-

"I'm pretty sure my enemies feel the same way, Luffy-Lu," she offers dryly, smoothly skirting away from his grabby hands. The endearment slips out, past her shy smile and the self-conscious twitterings of her heart.

She feels a ripple of comprehension pass through Ace.

_(The squealing of a pig, yanking at her skull, writhing like a fish caught on a line, panic, fear, pain, pain pain-) _

Valentine smiles serenely and takes off walking, past the boys (she pokes at Sabo's side teasingly, nudges Ace's shoulder with her own, skips out of the way of Luffy's chasing and wiggling fingers), towards the forest.

Porchemy is dead. He can't hurt her. Not anymore.

* * *

The day after they get back, Ace asks to talk to her alone.

She's internally freaking out the whole walk up through the village and to the border of the forest. Ace hesitates while deciding which direction to go in - can't go to the hideout, Sabo or Luffy might find them if they decide to look, it _is _the hottest hours of the day, after all, the best time for messing around and generally doing stupid shit - so Valentine reaches for his hand and tugs him towards the clover meadow.

He doesn't ask where they're going, just acquiesces, silent and (against her mild expectations) not jerking his hand away. Ace can be loud, can be very talkative (in the group or apart from it), but sometimes, he's quiet, and once he gets past a lot of toxic stuff he has built up in his brain around physical contact, he likes to be touched. As someone who likes the occasional quiet and enjoys casual contact with others herself, she appreciates it.

"What is this?" Ace asks, gently letting go of her hand as they step across the border of the treeline. Valentine doesn't respond verbally: she shoots a smile at him over her shoulder (not a grin, not quite so wild and unrestrained, but something sincere nonetheless), unlacing her boots and kicking them off, peeling off her socks and dropping them to the ground below so she can wiggle her bare toes in the soft clover beneath her feet.

She reaches for his hand again, tugs him unprotesting to the sunny center of the meadow. Spring flowers are just starting to bloom, here, and the clover is littered with shoots and buds of pink and blue and yellow.

She lets go and flops on her back to the soft green.

Wordlessly, and after a moment of hesitation, Ace copies her.

He kicks off his shoes, lays on the ground on his back. They're cheek-to-cheek but their legs are pointing in different directions, both gazing into the blue and cloudy sky, quiet.

For maybe a minute, she lets the silence sit, her braid (woven into a simple, loose plait) coiled along the clover like a shining, lustrous serpent, the rest of her splayed out loosely, carelessly, relaxed. She looks up at the cornflower blue of the sky, the puffy white clouds (dark gray on the horizon, looks like it might rain later), the brief glimpses in her peripheral of red dragonflies zipping through the air, wings translucent and glittering like stained glass. She can hear Ace's even breathing, so very near (exceedingly audible, but somehow not unpleasant), can feel the sensation of the warm sun on her skin and the clover below tickling her bare arms and legs, and she can sense…

It's peaceful.

Ilirya is quiet, wearing the striped and fragile form of a chipmunk and sunning himself on her belly. Aurelia is - for once - something entirely new. She's a wild horse, a long-maned golden palomino, trotting around the meadow and grazing on clover, making Valentine think fondly, impossibly, of her and Luffy's discovery of this place, so long ago. Aurelia's not quite a filly, not quite a mare, stuck in that inbetween place, as she'll surely be for some time longer, until Ace grows up.

Not for the first time, Valentine wonders how Aurelia will settle.

"...I wanted to talk about a couple things."

Ace's familiar timbre cuts into the silence, breaking through the buzzing and gentle noises of the meadow, not at all unpleasant. He sounds calm, thoughtful, voice quieter than usual but still so very him.

She tries to imagine not hearing his voice every day, but she can't picture it.

"Go ahead," Valentine replies. She inhales slow and exhales in a gradual sigh, arching her back and letting her arms rise until they're spread eagle, forearms dragging through the clover, enjoying the sensation, pure and genuine. "I'll answer, if I can."

"Thanks." Ace clears his throat, and Valentine stifles a fond smile. Makino's lessons are really kicking in, huh? "First, I wanted to just… I wanted to say thank you."

Valentine blinks.

"You got Sabo back." The clouds are drifting overhead, lazy, puffy and white. The sky seems ever-bluer as she gazes into it. "And I mean… I don't know what would've happened, if he would've come back on his own, but me and him talked, and-" Ace clears his throat. "He wasn't happy there. He wasn't happy at all. And I don't know what I was thinking, but I-"

He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise, but Valentine stays quiet.

He needs to get the chance to just talk. She's cut him off enough, before.

"I can just get- my brain gets stupid, sometimes, I dunno. I stop thinking like I should and I just start thinking stuff like…" Ace's voice gets quieter. "Sabo hates me. He hates us. He doesn't want to come back, he's too good for me, he's better off over there where I can't bring him down… I'm being selfish enough with Luffy, with Val. If Sabo managed to escape, then I should just let him go."

Ace tone is thick near the end of it, but it stays even. Valentine keeps staring at the sky.

"So. Yeah. That stuff's not… Sabo said that's not right. I dunno if he's right about that, but…" Ace breathes out shakily. "If he wants to be with us, I'd be the shittiest person alive to try and take away his freedom again. And it's not just me, here. There's you and Luffy, and Makino, and you guys are just… anybody would be lucky to have you guys in his life." Ace laughs, and she feels it when he shifts, still looking up at the sky. He's smiling. "It's funny, you know? I try not to be selfish, but I just end up being stupid. That's how it always is, with you guys. Right from the start…"

There's a brief quiet.

"So. Yeah. I don't know exactly what you did, but… I heard enough from Sabo. You really put your all into getting him back, and it just- it made me think about _why _I didn't, and why I was… yeah. I dunno." He makes another undefinable, stifled sound. "It's so hard to _talk _about it, damn. But I needed to let you know that I- that you- that _I _appreciate it. Whatever you did to get Sabo back. And if any of us gets taken again, I'm gonna be first in line to rescue you guys."

Valentine smiles at the sky, gentle and gradual, blooming slow over her face. It's a watery smile.

"So, yeah. That's the first thing."

Valentine turns her head slightly, hearing it before she sees the galloping hooves of Aurelia pounding the clover and thundering in their direction-

Ace grunts an _oof _from the impact as Aurelia shrinks to a sprinting and panting golden retriever puppy, colliding into his side with a hearty _thump. _

"C'mon, Rels," Ace grumbles, but he's laughing, and Valentine sneaks a quick peek up past her hairline and to his face, catching sight of the glisten of teartracks and the slightest curve of a freckled smile before she tears her eyes away, refocusing on the sky. "I'm tryna have a talk here."

Aurelia - Rels? - of course, doesn't respond. But her panting quiets as she curls up against Ace's side, calming, seeking the reassurance of touch.

"Yeah," Ace finally says, after another few moments of quiet as Aurelia settles. "Do you- do you hear what I'm saying? Do you wanna say anything?"

"I think it's important for me to just listen, right now," Valentine responds quietly. "But if there's anything you specifically want me to address, l can do it."

"Got it. Yeah, so…" She hears his sigh, feels the distant hint of his movements as his shoulders shift. Is he petting Aurelia? (_Rels… _she likes the sound of it.)

"That's the first thing. Second thing is- can you tell me more about that thing you mentioned, back in the terminal, when Bluejam… when everyone fell down? You said it was-" she can't see it, but she can feel when Ace makes a face. "Conquistador's Hakay?"

"Conqueror's Haki," she giggles, grinning, forgetting to be careful, and Ace shares a laugh with her.

Ace's laughter trails off naturally, and her smile slowly fades as she tries to keep her mind from going back to that day, the blood, the fear, the pain. "Yeah. Conqueror's Haki." He enunciates carefully. "You said you read a book on it?"

"Uh." Her mind fizzes. "Yeah. In a… manner of speaking."

"The hell does that mean?"

"I can't give you the book, is what I'm saying. I don't have it anymore."

Ace makes a faintly disbelieving sound. "Alright."

There's a moment of slightly uncomfortable silence, unbroken by the buzzing sounds of the meadow, the trilling of birds and Rels' still-audible puppyish panting.

"Well. We've all got our secrets." he trails off, sounding distant. "Can you tell me any more about it?"

"Yeah," she replies, automatic, pathetically grateful he's letting it go. "It's- Conqueror's Haki is this… it's a manifestation of the user's will. I think. It's one of three types of haki, and it's the most rare. Anybody can be trained in the other two, but conqueror's has to be inherited genetically."

"Genetically, huh?" She can't quite decipher his tone.

"Yeah, but it's not guaranteed. I dunno how it really works, honestly. Just that one in a couple million people have it, and… what it does."

"What does it do?"

"It can be… used? Released?" She has no idea how this actually works. "In a shockwave, I think…? More advanced users can make it more targeted." She's dodging the question. "And what it _does _is- if an opponent is significantly weaker than you, they'll usually fall unconscious. Those weaker but not _way _weaker may be incapacitated, or they might try to run away… I mean, this is all based on memory-" _sort of, _"-so I might be getting it wrong, but I think that's the gist of it."

"So, when everyone fell down…" Ace says quietly.

"Yeah." She swallows around the lump in her throat. "That was conqueror's haki. And, like I told you, this is… based on my imperfect memory." She tries to let how honest she's being leak into her voice. _Please, believe me. _

"...Okay." There's the barest second of hesitation, but there's no uncertainty in his voice.

She blinks. "That's it? Just 'okay?'"

"I mean, you're not lying. You never really do."

She chokes on a laugh, but it doesn't quite make it out of her throat.

"What about the other types of hakay?"

"Haki, Ace," she absently corrects. "And they're called 'observation' haki and 'armament' haki. Armament is- it basically reinforces whatever it affects, whether that be your body, your weapon, etcetera. Observation is basically sensory haki. It's kinda complicated, but you can basically just- sense… stuff…"

She trails off. Several puzzle pieces click into place.

Ace shifts, several flyaway locks of his hair tickling her cheek. "Well, I wanna see if I can do more conqueror's haki stuff. It sounds useful. And the others sound good, too."

"They're all useful, in one way or another. And they have to be unlocked," she murmurs, distant. She stares into the sky, unseeing. "In battle, generally, but there's other ways. And almost nobody knows how they work outside the grand line. It's extremely difficult to find way to train any of the three types."

"The Grand Line?" Ace's inflection gives the words the capital letters they deserve. "The pirate graveyard? What about it?"

"Haki is for really strong people. And it interacts weird with devil fruits… they're all weak to it, but certain types are _only _weak to it. Devil fruits are almost mythical in all the oceans around here…" she absently waves an arm to the left, right, the sky. "But they're suuuuper common in the grand line. And haki is one of the only things that normal people can use that matches it, so people learn how to use it." _And not-people, but I don't think that's really relevant. _

"...I'd ask how the hell you know all this," Ace murmurs, "but then I think you'd lie."

She doesn't say anything.

"I don't care how you know." Ace whispers, the rare shrewdness that sometimes comes over him leaking into his voice, sharp and forgiving, paradoxical. "It doesn't matter to me. Just tell me more about it."

She does.

Rambling into the warm air, past the dragonflies and the clover and the blue sky, she tells him all she knows about haki, hands waving as she forgets to hold back, gesticulating and grinning, occasionally overcome with inflection perhaps a little too sharply sarcastic for a nine-year-old's high-pitched, childish tone. _Conqueror's. Armament. Observation. _

The more she talks about the latter, forming and solidifying theories and opinions as she speaks them aloud, the more she starts to be sure.

"-and I think," she finishes, quieting, "that I'm starting to unlock my observation haki."

"Wha- _really?" _

Ace, who's been listening patiently for maybe half-an-hour now, flips from his back to his belly, propping himself up on his arms to stare down at her face. She flinches reflexively as his hair whips against her cheek - a consequence to their faces being so close in the first place, side-by-side - and his shadow falls over her as his turn closes the scant inches between them. Valentine blinks, splayed in the clover, at the upside-down features of him: cinnamon fleck freckles, naturally dark skin a tawny golden-brown, tinted warmer and freckle splattered by the sun, shadowed from the angle until she can't quite make out his expression, framed by the thick waves of black hanging down and curling around his cheeks. (Is his hair getting a little shaggy?) His eyebrows are dark and dramatic, his lashes unfairly long, eyes gunmetal gray, and the cuts and bruises on his face from the gray terminal fire (how long ago was it?) that litter his brow and jaw and scraped up nose are almost entirely faded, healed. They're scabbed over and half-faded, bandages discarded, exposed to open air, and he's staring down at her, the look on his face melting from baffled to inscrutable.

"Really?" he says.

She nods mutely. "Yeah. I mean. I can… I can feel your presence right now."

She closes her eyes.

It's barely-detectable, and she could almost convince herself she's imagining it, but she feels it.

Clearer, with her eyes closed. The faint, wavering warmth of him, tumultuous and orange-tinged, utterly indescribable, felt by a sense she's sure she didn't have a few days ago. So near.

His shadow leaves her face and he collapses to the clover, beside her again, but she keeps her eyes closed, enjoying the sensation. It feels like basking in the heat of the sun, scant radiance, not yet expanded to full, roaring potential. And more than that, it feels like _him. _It feels nice.

"This stuff," Ace murmurs, breath tickling her cheek, "sounds like something we should tell Sabo and Luffy about."

"You're not wrong," she responds, eyes still closed, face to the sky. Her senses are straining, reaching past the meadow (past the odd, echoing copies of their signatures, in Ilirya and in Rels, and _that's _something she'll have to examine closer at a later date) and into the trees, trying to see how far she can push it.

Past the tinges of Ace, all she can feel are the barest whispers of hints and intuition, feelings and hunches that remain unconfirmed. _Instinct. _She has a feeling, though, that if she just keeps doing this - reaching out and _feeling, _trying to detect as much as she can - her abilities will start to grow, solidify, firm into certainty. It might take a while, but-

"I thought you were dead."

Her eyes fly open.

"I really- I really thought you were gone forever."

His voice is choked, barely audible. He's laying beside her. The meadow is still in motion around them, the sky still blue and the dragonflies dancing, but Valentine feels, abruptly, as if she's stuck in a moment in time, still and inescapable. She can't react, can only stare into the blue, wide-eyed, the tickle of the breeze and the clover a distant, faraway thing.

Ace laughs, shattering the suspension like spun sugar as the world comes back to her, vibrant and unapologetic, and there's nothing of his recent humor in the sound. It's barren of joy, barren of smiles; empty, for all intents and purposes. An utter void, helpless.

Her metaphysical awareness of him fades away, yanked wholescale back into the physical world, and she leans up, pivots, ignores Ace's _hey! _of protest, doesn't look close at his reddened, miserably fragile expression before she pulls him up by his arms and into a hug.

They're both half-risen, seated in the clover, dæmons toppled off of them and off to the side. He shoves at her shoulders, halfhearted, but she squeezes her arms around him tighter. She feels _horrible, _she didn't even think- she didn't think for a single second about what Luffy and Ace would think of her, back when she put everything on the line to go and rescue Sabo.

She's starting to realize that she might have made an oversight.

"Ace," she murmurs, heartfelt, into his bare shoulder, cheek pressed against the worn strap of his shirt. Her eyes are stinging. "I'm sorry. Thank you for coming for me."

Ace hugs her back so tight it's bruising, stifling his silent, built-up dry sob in the crook of her neck. He's so still that he's trembling- trying so, so hard not to break down. Her heart hurts for him.

"I..." What can she say to him? What can she say that'll make it okay for him to cry? "I meant what I said, you know. I'm not gonna die. Not if I can help it."

She hisses out her next breath as his fingers dig into her shoulderblades, extended claws of a cat that refuses to let go. "That's the- that's the _problem! _You say- 'not if I can help it,' but you'd-" he rasps out a breath, a terrible, foregone realization. "You'd die for us!"

She can't lie to him. She hugs him tighter, ignoring the pain of his nails digging into her, tries to give some measure of comfort as he stares into the terrible truth. She can't look at him, hides her eyes in the crook of his neck. "Yes."

"Then how could you-" he chokes out a sob, miserable and stifled as his forehead thumps against her shoulder, as the stinging pressure of his nails retracts, smoothing into his palms and rough fingers flattened against her back and curling around the edge of her ribs to hold her closer, and she lets the tears coming to her eyes spill over, sorrowful and apologetic but never regretful. She can't change her mind on this, won't, not even as she feels his tears dripping onto her skin, undeniable.

"I'm sorry," she says, gentle, and he cries.

He wails into her shoulder, loud and broken and brutal as a punch, the sobs tearing from his chest like the cries of an animal. They rise above the trees, pour into her until it's all she can hear, all she can feel, new sense tuned into his unbearable sorrow, resonating. She can _feel _his awful heartbreak, his helplessness, his fear and pain and self-hatred and anger, and it floods past her like the battering winds of a storm, incongruous and dragged into the gentle sunlight of the meadow. All she can do - all _he _can do - is endure.

She cries with him, gentle and sympathetic, but she can't possibly match the breadth of his sorrow. It's beyond her, past her death, past even Sabo, the thousands of indignities piled up over barely more than a decade weathering life's cruelties, harsh realities. It's the fear of _ losing, _the fear of losing what's been let in, the people he's started to hold so precious. He loves them fiercely, she can feel it, but it's not a kind love. It's salvation and damnation, the two inextricably intertwined, because behind every single day of Ace's life is a fear, the pervasive rage and terror of never belonging, of never being enough. He _wants _this, so badly it hurts him, and he can't-

She heaves in a shuddering breath, clinging to him harder, petting gentle, reflexive and comforting over him as he wails.

He wants this so bad it hurts him, this family they've found, and he feels selfish enough with love for them that even if it'd be for the best, he can't leave now. He tried so hard at first, so hard to keep them away, but they just kept-

"I'm here," she whispers, choked, because she can't say _it's okay _because it's not, can't whisper _shh _because he's already spent so long with nobody to hear him cry, she won't try to quiet him now. Somebody needs to let him be heard.

He cries and cries and cries, endlessly, the overspilling of a bottomless well of sorrow, because in the end, he's an eleven-year-old boy, hurt and abandoned by the world, terrified to lose the small family he's found. He holds her so tight it's almost unbearable, striving to cling to just one thing, one person.

He breaks and she stays there with him, holding him tight, as if perhaps, with her arms encircling him, she can hold the most important parts of him together.

The end of it doesn't feel like catharsis.

Ace clings to her still, as if he doesn't want to let go, hiccuping sobs still leaking out of him with every breath. Valentine can feel, distantly, Ilirya and Rels curled up together, somewhere to the side, but her focus is on the boy in her arms.

She clutches him just a bit tighter, stroking over his back, because he's so _young, _so hurt, but he doesn't have to be alone. None of these three boys will have to be alone.

She's not going to be the first one to let go. He can pull away when he's ready.

Kneeling in the clover, shoulder wet with tears and snot and trying to swallow down her own cries, trembling, her eyes go wide as she feels something furry and warm pushing against her arm. _Ilirya_, she thinks, off kilter, shifts her elbow, raising it up just a bit so he can hop on-

A warm, squirming puppy wriggles between them, but it's not Ilirya.

She leans back with a gasp, sharp inhale swallowed as Ace pulls her back almost desperately, clinging. The warm golden fur of Aurelia is smooshed between them, going still and content, and a moment later Valentine experiences the utterly indescribable sensation of feeling another person's dæmon shift against your body, separated only by a thin layer of fabric.

Rels does smaller and softer- a cat, maybe, or a rabbit- no, the impossibly fragile and downy-soft gray of a chinchilla. She curls up between them, nestling soft fur and twitching nose against Valentine's neck, tiny paws curled over the collar of her tank top, and Valentine's breath stills.

She feels Ace's spike of panic-fear-rejection, feels him move as if to pull away-

"No," she whispers, voice wrecked, hugging him tighter, pulling him back. "It's- it's okay. I was just- surprised. I don't mind."

Aurelia lets out a little trill, and Valentine can feel the dæmon's tears leaking against the bare skin of her neck, near-silent and far less loud but just as sorrowful.

Ilirya leaps, wends up her shoulder, a ferret, and hesitates.

"Yeah," Valentine murmurs thickly, exhales shakily as Ilirya darts from her shoulder to Ace's, winding comforting and warm around the back of his neck.

She jolts, hugs Ace tighter, reflexively, because-

It feels as if she's standing, eyes closed, next to the buzzing, shivering breadth of something so, so important. Ace isn't touching Ilirya deliberately, isn't doing anything but let himself be touched, but-

A feeling of unbearable intimacy shudders through her, settles, evens out.

_Belonging. _

Ace starts crying again. She breathes.

* * *

Eventually, as all things do, it ends.

She tells him, laughing brokenly through her whispers, that he'll have to be the one to let go first, that she can't be the one. Silently, he complies, hands clutching at her shirt for just a moment more before he releases her, pulls away.

He looks utterly wrecked. But what catches her eye isn't that- it's the closed-eyed form of Ilirya, still huddled against Ace's neck like a mink stole, and with a jolt she realizes she's holding Rels in her arms, cradling her gently, stroking with tender fingers at velvety-soft ears.

Ilirya unwinds, jumps from Ace's shoulder to hers, and she shudders at the loss of it, raw sensation receding, calming. It's not pleasant, exactly, but it's a type of relief, a reprieve from raw connection, nothing she's ever felt before.

Still, it's time. She stills her stroking fingers, mouth twitching into a reflexive frown at Rels' chirrup of protest. The feeling of holding someone else's living, breathing dæmon in her arms is indescribable, utterly unique. She can feel Aurelia's heartbeat thrumming under her hand.

_It's time._

She leans close, holding Aurelia gently, and deposits Ace's dæmon into his waiting arms.

Rels shifts mutely to a winter ermine, climbing up Ace's arm to wind around his neck, and for some reason, the mirroring sends a flush barreling through her, rising fast to the back of her neck and her cheeks.

Ace just looks at her, expression wrecked and not hiding it, almost pensive, empty now that he's not wracked with grief. He's staring at her intently, and after the space of a moment and a flash of realization she understands: he's assessing her. Waiting with red eyes and teartracks stained on his freckled cheeks to see if she'll turn on him, or tease him, or take it all back. Unwavering, standing tall as he faces her down, awaiting the consequences. Waiting to see if her gentleness will recede.

"We can stay here for as long as you want," she murmurs.

He clears his throat. "No. I'm- I'm good."

She doesn't begrudge him the distance as he clears his throat, scrubbing at his eyes with his wrist as he rises, turning, getting some space. After all that trust, she can't imagine he's feeling anything but very, very aware of what just happened.

She is also very, very aware of what just happened.

"You coming?" he tosses over his shoulder, already halfway across the meadow and pulling on his flats. She rises mutely, Ilirya wound 'round her shoulders still, stepping over and across the warm clover meadow with bare feet. She skips past him, leans down to scoop her socks and boots off the ground, starts pulling them on.

He waits for her at the treeline. They turn to go-

"Wait!" she blurts, hand darting out like a snake to latch around his wrist.

He's staring at her, wary and red-eyed, eyes narrowed. "What?"

He's shared so much with her. How could she _not _say this?

"Before we go," she says, nervous, hand squeezing just barely tighter around the knobs of his wrist. "I've gotta- I've gotta tell you something."

He stares at her, wide-eyed. "Yeah?"

She swallows. One heartbeat passes. Another. "I ate a devil fruit."

A beat of silence.

_"What?" _

* * *

She tells Luffy and Sabo about Haki, and about the fruit.

Reactions are mixed.

Luffy is _so _excited about her devil fruit. He asks if this means she's finally gonna start taking baths with all of them now, and she offers a dry _no, Luffy, _even as Sabo and Ace choke and splutter in mortification. Luffy asks, bemused, how she's gonna take baths alone if she can't move in the bathtub, and she shrugs and tells him she's managing.

(Managing with quarter-full tubs and very careful hair washing, mostly.)

Sabo asks what her fruit _does _(ever-practical) and she tells him, truthfully, that she has no idea. She repeats the ironclad name of it, says she'll have to figure it out, and in all actuality, Sabo will probably be a lot of help when it comes to that. Sabo's type of smarts match up well with hers in the long-term - the idea spinning, prepping for later, not-in-the-heat-of-combat type of planning smarts - and outside any life-threatening situations (god forbid) to help her make breakthroughs, she has a feeling that her fruit isn't gonna be the easy-to-use, straightforward and powerful type. She can't exactly describe how she knows, but it _feels _complicated, feels…

It feels like it's gonna be a hell of a pain in the ass to figure out.

(She explains that _yes, the devil fruit is probably why my eyes got all weird, Luffy. _They take that fine, although she gets a lot of curious stares. She tries not to take it to heart. Hey, if one of them changed eye colors, she'd probably be fascinated, so…

She makes a concerted effort not to hold it against them. Significantly higher percentage of eye-contact during conversations notwithstanding.)

The haki conversation (though again, it's more of a lecture) goes smoother. She can tell that, like Ace, most of the finer points go flying over Luffy's head, but Sabo seems especially keen-eyed and interested, even pulls out a notebook to take notes partway through. She tries her best to explain the hazy, murky truths - this she remembers sharply, knows it's important, but _still - _and whenever she feels like she's forgetting something particularly important, her head tingles and she gets back on track.

(She doesn't think too hard about this.)

Haki becomes a mundane, springtime truth in the normalcy of Foosha Village. Yet another thing to consider while getting stronger, yes, but ultimately, just another thing on the pile of things to tackle.

She's not sure if she's underselling it or what, but whatever. They have time to figure it out.

* * *

She drinks cold milk after her first successful solo bath.

_It's the little things, _she thinks to herself, self-satisfied, tipping her head back as she drains the frosty glass to the dregs. Her hair is heavy with water, hanging down her bare back, dripping inordinate amounts of water onto the already-slick tiled floor, and she mentally adds _wring out hair _to her short-term to-do list. (Good thing her balance is so good, or she would've slipped and busted her head open more than ten times by now.)

She places the empty cup gingerly on the rim of the sink, glass clinking against porcelain.

_Some things really do persist, _she thinks, because she still likes drinking milk. Luffy guzzles the stuff, and even Ace is begrudgingly partial to it, so with Valentine enjoying it as she does, that leaves Sabo as the only one of the four of them that just doesn't like the taste.

It gets fresh delivered every morning from a nearby farm right to their doorstep, and all two gallons of it are always gone by the end of the day. With Luffy and Ace's endless appetites (and her and Sabo's, to a lesser extent), plus Makino's own usage in cooking, the fact's not surprising.

(She's glad that the little bit she squirreled away this morning lasted until now, though.)

She squeezes the water out of her hair in a cascade, towels off briskly, noting that even with wet hair - and make no mistake, her hair was _soaked _with water - her acute hearing had remained at full capacity. She hadn't felt any change at all after wringing it out.

(That first step into the water is less jarring, now, all the more because she expects it. She doesn't know if it's her imagination, either, but it seems less starkly crippling every time, more of a shift and less of getting a limb cut off.

It brings to mind easing into a cold pool on a hot day. Difficult to stand, at first, but her body quickly adjusts.)

She hasn't done any extensive testing with the effects of water on her body, yet (and she's not in a hurry to do so), but from what she's experienced, still water is the worst for devil fruit users. (Which includes her, now. _She's _a devil fruit user. It hasn't quite sunk in.) When the bathwater is churning, getting splashed doesn't affect her at all (thankfully), nor does mundane tasks like washing her hands, scrubbing dishes, etc. Running water is fine, as are all forms of non-submersive moving water (including, she predicts, rain, though her hypothesis is yet to be tested).

It's the still water that has the greatest effect. And seawater, she assumes, but she hasn't gotten near the stuff since she ate her devil fruit. Hasn't had the chance, in the span of just a few days.

So she hasn't taken a dip in the sea quite yet. For their part, Ace and Sabo haven't gone swimming in any of the forest's rivers since months before when her and Luffy joined them (as stupid as it seems to risk going swimming in crocodile infested waters), and though they apparently usually do it pretty often during the summer months, it's somewhat of a moot point in the wintertime. Still, winter is bleeding into spring, and Valentine frowns at the very undeniable fact that she'll never be able to swim again, won't be able to join in on any of the upcoming summer festivities.

(She'll be stuck on the sidelines with Luffy, and _wow _does that give her an insight into some of the little things his devil fruit keeps him from. She vouches to try and be more considerate in the future.)

Well, she can't swim, it's true, but that doesn't mean she can't go in the water. She _can, _in the shallows, at least, or as long as she has someone making sure she stays afloat. Or a lifejacket. If those even exist.

And though she's compared it to jumping into a cold pool, she doesn't really hate it, because being in the water is soothing. It's like laughing gas, she thinks, in the vein that she _knows _something is off - she shouldn't be relaxing, something's wrong, something's _wrong - _but it slows her active mind, makes the hubbub of her thoughts go still, quiet, slow and molasses-like. Not alarmingly, but subtly, bit by bit, until she's falling asleep in the bath and Makino is hammering on the door, calling out anxiously, _Valentine, are you okay? Valentine- _

(This is why she refers to this as her first successful solo-bath.)

It's sort of like self-medicating, which scares the hell out of her. Her most successful strategy to date is keeping the bathtub shallowly filled and scrubbing herself down, sudsy and briskly ignoring the reaching tendrils of calm.

It's weird, because she thinks her body might still be changing. Not in the growing-girl, maturing part (which it is, to her mingled relief and apprehension), but in the 'a devil fruit is changing my biology and I have no idea what it's altering' part.

Her hearing is better, that's for sure. And it only seems to be _improving, _weirdly, though she has a sneaking suspicion it's entirely linked to her fruit, with how her senses snap back like a rubber band when she takes a dip. She wonders, scrabbling to find answers, if the echo echo fruit is changing her biology to catch up with its altered sensory perception, nudging her internal workings just a bit further than normal as she grows, but that would be preposterous.

Wouldn't it?

Anyways, she's not gonna think about the passive effects of her fruit right now. Currently, she wants to figure out how to use it actively.

* * *

The small, longrunning business where Makino got Valentine her first kerchief - Mr. Tells' Fabric Shop - also carries clothing.

The shop is an organized, tidy place, furnished with all wooden tables, floors, walls, and clothing racks. The wood itself lacquered and shining; a rare luxury in Foosha, but then again, this shop has been around for longer than Valentine's been alive. The luxury makes sense.

The multicolored array of clothing strikes a sharp contrast against all that shining wood, as does the back portion of the shop, full of wall-to-wall shelves crammed with fabrics of every imaginable variety. Rich brocades and fine silks are prominent and on display; well within the range of vision of the register, too, just in case anybody gets sticky fingers. Not that anyone gets sticky fingers in Foosha. (None other than young-her and Luffy, anyways. Everyone else is a respectable adult of the middling to elderly age range. Except Makino.)

Mr. Tells' Fabric Shop is _also _where Makino buys Luffy all his tank tops. Valentine can faintly remember them paying a visit to the place when they were much younger (too young for the memory to be much more than impressions and fog), giggling at Luffy hopping up and down and pointing to the rack of multicolored button-down sleeveless tops on the rack, shouting _I want that one!, _tugging insistently on the shade of the brightest of reds with his teeny-tiny, grubby hands.

Makino gets almost all of her own clothes there (the ones she doesn't sew herself), which isn't unduly surprising, considering that it's the only clothing and fabric shop in Foosha Village. Still, being the only option doesn't mean it's a poor option; the clothes are well-made, and if they're not sewn by Mr. Tells himself, they're shipped in from elsewhere and sold at higher prices.

Today, Makino has bustled them all inside, given them a murmuring request to _please, don't break anything. _Valentine nods fervently; she'll keep an eye on the boys, make sure Luffy doesn't get too excited and knock over anything important. Makino's been a patron of this shop for years, and Valentine honestly can't stand the thought of her mom getting bad rep or worse just because she's taking them to get some new clothes.

Speaking of.

Valentine taps her finger on her chin as she considers expanding the group of button-down-tank top proprietors from _two _to _three. _

There's shades in darker red than Luffy's preferred cherry-red, deep crimsons and rich maroons. She's keen-eyed as she strokes over the hems, eyes gleaming.

She likes them.

The shorts she's wearing right now are alright (blue shorts like Luffy's, they match anything and everything), but she's thinking of going in a different direction with those, too. Stake a claim on her color scheme at the outset, so to speak. (Not that she'll avoid clothes in _other _colors, at a later date, if they catch her eye, but she's always preferred wearing sets of a certain scheme.)

She slinks over to the lacquered wooden table of neatly folded pairs of shorts - rotating a wandering Luffy with a soft grip on his shoulders and pushing him gently towards the button-down-tank-top rack on the way, to his joyous grin - and rifles through the darker pairs. She has a plan.

* * *

Ultimately, it goes like this:

Valentine gets two button-down tank tops in deep crimson, one in maroon, and another in sky-blue; the last purely because she likes the color and she won't be hemmed in by her own color scheme, dammit, she'll wear whatever she wants.

She has new shorts, too, a practical pair in black, to-the-knee and studded with two sturdy pockets. She really, really likes the pockets.

Her boots are fine. A little worn-in, but they were overlarge when she got them, and she's just starting to grow into them now. With how her feet will be growing in the near future, she doesn't see the need to get any new boots.

And she's not going to abandon the rest of her closet, or anything (she's sure she'll throw on some of her old and beloved graphic tank-tops on lazy days), but she plans on phasing the new fashion in for whenever they go _out _out. As in, to the terminal or inside Goa's walls.

(They have an image to present, after all.)

And the rest of the boys have gotten new clothes as well. Sabo especially.

(She remembers catching sight of a familiar face in her peripheral, turning more fully at the glimpse of what she can only describe as Sabo looking _lost, _staring at the racks of clothing, trying to figure out what to choose.

Was this the first time in his whole life he'd ever chosen what he'd be wearing?

Valentine had managed one purposeful step in Sabo's direction before Makino was stepping in, putting a gentle hand on Sabo's shoulder, talking low, guiding him towards a rack.

With a gentle smile, Valentine had turned back to her own search.)

The end result is rather impressive.

Sabo's previous hat - made of felt and silk, glossy and black, worn dull from wear and tear - can't be replaced in this particular store (though Valentine's well aware of a hat shop in Edge Town that purportedly has everything he'll need for a replacement, and she notes it quietly, puts it on her docket for later).

His previous high-end garb has been replaced with a similar caliber of colors, blues and whites and blacks, but the overall fashion is different.

The tattered cravat is gone, and with nothing around his neck, Sabo seems to feel a bit underdressed. He worries at the cuff of his new dark blue coat often, eventually rolling up the sleeves in his familiar style, looking a bit more comfortable, and for that - if nothing else - Valentine is appreciative.

He's wearing shorts in the same style and color that Valentine ended up choosing - that is, practical and black - with his (rather ostentatious, but hey, he's the one who picked it) white button down tucked into the shorts, sleeves rolled up under the jacket. His hands had twitched for the belts, and Makino didn't begrudge him; his previous golden-buckled belt (emblazoned with Sabo's noble family crest, and _wow _had she felt stupid after noticing that one) has been replaced with one in simple brown, plain-buckled and understated.

The resulting look is oddly more mature. She thinks it may be because Sabo's not wearing oversized cyan shorts anymore (and _boy _had those been ill-fitting, not that Valentine had ever had the heart to tell him, considering that they were one of his only remaining possessions of the life he'd left behind), just the neutral and muted shades of black, white, and dark blue. The coat is high-collared and versatile, material light but not overly-thin, and the shirt is of fine make, well fitting and easy enough to replace anywhere if (when) it gets ruined and need calls for it.

He's gotten new boots, too, black and laced-up rather than buckled like his old ones. As someone who wears lace-up boots herself, Valentine appreciates the fashion.

Surprisingly, Ace has gotten new boots as well.

He's replacing the flats! Valentine feels a bit betrayed by the change. He looks so… so _serious _with the boots, even retaining his typical tank top and shorts. He's yet to shed his resting frowny face, though by this point, Valentine can effortlessly see past it and prod a smile out of him if need-be. (And need-be is far more often than Ace would admit to preferring.)

(It's impossible to feel anything other than utterly at-ease with Ace, now. After what he shared with her, what _they _shared, the barriers of uncertainty and awkwardness hold about as much weight as fine gossamer. Visible, certainty, but of little import.)

And Ace, of course, who's been wearing black shorts since the beginning, accuses them of copying him. Valentine responds with a teasing shrug. He's not entirely wrong, after all.

Luffy, for his part, has kept his old fashion entirely, strawhat, sandals, and all. Not that she had any hope of that changing. Luffy's style is just part of who he is. (He manages to wrangle a couple more colorful button-down tank tops out of Makino, though. One in sky-blue just like hers, another in an eyebrow raising shade of yellow.

Hey, she'll always have Luffy's back, but unless he's wearing something that clashes _atrociously, _fashion is a form of self-expression and therefore completely his choice.)

Valentine eyes the fabrics on display consideringly, and though there's more than a few she wouldn't mind wearing in the form of kerchiefs - a plain, velvety black velour, a subtle brocade over olive green in shimmering thread of dusky rose, a bright blue silk - she knows very well that she can use her _own _share of the treasure to get some more kerchiefs in Goa. She knows that Simmons has them in stock, after all. She's bought more than enough as gifts for Makino to know that.

All in all, she considers the shopping trip a success. They manage to make it out of the store without knocking anything over (if barely), and Mr. Tells gives them an amused _goodbye _accompanied by a flutter of moth's wings as Makino herds them out, new clothes bundled in her arms.

(Valentine already has the treasure prepped and converted to pure beri bills, ready to slip into her mom's lockbox in the dead of night. It's not the most honest way, but Makino won't take any money directly from her, no matter what she tries, so Valentine has to resort to desperate measures.)

* * *

Two weeks pass in a blink. They move back into the forest.

It's getting truly warm, now, spring proper, and Valentine tells Makino honestly that she doesn't think they'll be able to spend the majority of their time in the village. Makino isn't happy about it, but she doesn't argue; perhaps because Makino honestly can't afford to feed them all every day (they'd eat her out of house and home), but also because Valentine has dropped a couple of the details of Sabo's situation (and consequential removal from said situation), and Makino - after she gets past her tightlipped outrage - expressed that she understands, that she gets why they really do need to stay hidden for a while.

She tells them to visit when they can, gives them tight hugs and forehead kisses, and asks for them to keep each other safe.

(Valentine doesn't blame her at all for this. Makino is- Makino is so _young, _barely twenty five, and she has a business to run and a _life _to live. Valentine doesn't know the details of her own birth, but she can do the math, and she can't stand the idea of being a burden to the first person in this world who's ever loved her unconditionally. And more than that, she can't _stand _the idea of Makino getting in trouble - hurt, taken, worse than that - because Valentine couldn't grow the fuck up and live somewhere else, taking her issues and problems with her.

She hugs her mom tight and tells her she'll visit often.)

* * *

They expand the treehouse.

First things first, they carve out a bunch of new treasure boxes in the boughs of the massive tree that houses their hideout. It takes a little while, but they manage it, leaving a lot of (hopeful) empty space for when enough time passes that they feel safer going back to the terminal.

(They sneak into the terminal under the cover of night to fetch the materials, discarded boards and wood and nails. The Gray Terminal isn't back to normal - the landscape has changed, all their known paths are _gone, _so many of the people are mangled or dead or just plain missing - but in a way, it'll always return to how it was. The persistence of the terminal doesn't come from happenstance; it's a symptom, a sickness that Goa refuses to treat at the source.

As long as the Hightown of Goa exists, so too will the Gray Terminal. In whatever form it takes.)

So they fetch more materials and expand the hideout, creating a multi-roomed, _very _reinforced, stupidly over-trapped fortress in the trees. They each have their 'own' room, now - more privacy than they've had so far, as low as that standard is - but Luffy never uses his, and they end up piling into the same room to sleep more often than not. The separate rooms give them a little more space to split off, though, and although Valentine has found that horrifyingly, it's almost impossible for her to sleep alone, if she ever _wanted _to, she'd have the option, so.

(She's still not over the dizzying view from the balcony. She's never been afraid of heights, but she has a healthy dose of common sense and a good head on her shoulders. No _thanks.) _

* * *

Valentine throws herself into being stronger with an almost frightening fervor.

What happened in the meadow with Ace sits quiet at the back of her mind. She'd gotten so close to everything he is, then - as much as that's even possible in a world like this - and as a result their relationship has shifted. He's calmer around her, relies on her just a bit more, assumes she'll be there. Valentine's not sure if he even knows he's doing it - she's reasonably sure his attitude towards what happened in the meadow is 'never talk about it, ever,' after all - but the way he acts has changed.

And he's fiercely, _aggressively _protective of all three of them. Sabo finds it irritating, Luffy's cavalierly cheerful about it, and Valentine isn't quite sure how to feel.

She settles for appreciative annoyance.

They move into the treehouse, and it feels like a move-in for good. Valentine takes the majority of her closet with her, her one (precious) kerchief, her best pillow and her favorite downy blanket.

(The more she scans her room in the bar for what she wants to take, the more she realizes how barren it is, how very little she has to take with her. Everything important is already in the forest.)

They settle back into hunting and sparring and messing around, a little less carefree, a little more heavy, but still whole. There's a wariness in them, now, barely perceptible, except-

Luffy is clingier. Ace is more protective. Sabo is quieter and louder in turns, not quite sure where he wants to be. And Valentine is-

Valentine is afraid.

There's this fear in her, now. She's so weak, so fragile, feels like no matter where she reaches, it'll never be enough. What is she, to a real pirate? A blade of grass? A pebble?

This entire nightmare with Porchemy and Bluejam and what almost happened to Sabo (days away from losing him, forever, never again) has been a wakeup call. She needs to change.

There's lots of things for her to focus on, but she narrows down her main goals:

1\. Straight-up asskicking ability (training methods: sparring with the boys, exercises)

2\. Observation Haki(?) (training methods: mediate, maybe? sitting down and trying hard to sense stuff?)

3\. Echo Echo no Mi (training methods: who the fuck knows, honestly, maybe trying to talk it out with Sabo)

Her time limit is unknown.

She gets to work.

—

—

—

**Notes:**

How about them apples, huh? B)

Okay, so. On a more serious characterization note.

Reasons that Ace is letting a huge possible past secret of Valentine's go (in terms of not caring how she learned about haki):

In canon, Ace is super persistent when it comes to discovering Sabo's past. He and Luffy basically rattle it out of him! So why the one-eighty?

["This is Sabo. If it's important, he would've told us." She stares particularly hard at Ace, who's frowning, looking at her. He doesn't let go of Sabo's collar.

"I hate liars and cowards," says Ace. "If Sabo's been tricking us all this time-"

She can hear the ghost of hurt rising in his voice, and she cuts him off. "Sabo's not like that, and you know it." She's harsh, matter-of-fact. As she needs to be. "Let him explain."]

Ace, who has (obviously) a complex relationship with his past and origins, takes this to heart. _Does it really matter where they come from?_ he thinks. _Luffy and Val don't know that I have the blood of a demon, but they accept me anyways._

This has almost no effect in the short-term - Sabo tells them about his origins as a noble anyways, etc. - but in the long term, it starts to affects how Ace regards people based on their origins. And that, by consequence, influences how forgiving Ace is willing to be with another person he considers family.

If the situation was a little different - if they were less calm, if she hadn't taken him to the meadow, if there were other people around, if the timing was off, if this wasn't after he thought she _died_ and then she returned, alive, hoo boy, that's another huge contributing factor - Ace may not have acted the same way. But then again, isn't that how it always is? Reactions aren't ironclad. More often, they're a combination of factors coming together.

I think that characterization done well should speak for itself, but this point pretty significantly affects the plot and it's origins aren't too immediately apparent, so I wanted to state it in plainer terms. I hope people don't feel as if it was out of character.

(Also, literally do not me on the inconsistent capitalization of 'haki.' And 'edge town.' I just got a beta, but they're only reading for chapter nine and onwards! :,D.)

...All that stuff aside, I think this chapter is pretty exciting for a lot of reasons. What do you guys think? :)

(This chapter is dedicated to all the people who think Ace deserved to cry before he was dying in Luffy's arms in-canon. Because he did. He so did.)


	9. INTERLUDE: ACE

Her hair is dark.

Dark and very soft, which he knows because he's made a bad habit of touching it. Even at the start. Valentine - whose dark eyes never provided even the slightest hint to what she was thinking - would just look at him, bratty and scowly with all his freckles and skinned knees, the entire monstrous picture of him, and pensively accept him tugging on the wayward lock of her long hair as if the fundamental state change it implied was his right. Like he had _any _right to it at all.

Her hair was dark. Except when the light hit it.

In the sunlight coming through the trees, he saw the color in the whirlwind of sleek black fanning out behind her. Green, exactly like Makino's (though he hadn't even known the kind face of the woman it came from at the time), deeply green as Dadan's empty bottles of rum strewn around the kitchen counter where she somehow thought he still couldn't reach. Like cloudy colored glass and old moss, and even that - his first, private, fleeting thought on the matter, one of the many to follow - was beautiful.

And then it caught the light and he saw the blue.

Sleek and glossy like the rooster's tails he remembers seeing in the village when he was small enough to still be allowed there, just chasing the green, the smooth transition of color at another angle-

And then the _red, _following it, the startling ripple-shine of vivid rust as she ducked one of Luffy's godawful punches - slow as she was, even _she _could do that - and seven hells, how many colors did this girl _have _in her hair?

The answer ended up depending on the situation.

Wet from the rain or the bath, glimpses snuck from surreptitious glances caught from the corner of his eyes, it was endless black, a cascade of ink far longer than it had any rights to be in the jungle. Ace considered _his _hair long, for god's sake, and it was only to his jaw! But hers reached the middle of her back, meticulously cut in a way that belied only the attention a caring adult could give, and Ace felt resentment curl in his gut, stoking the already-raging fire.

When they ran through the jungle for the hunt, the crybaby running at the mouth like he always did, the dumb girl silent like she always was, and Sabo at his back (like he should be), the light hit it and made it bleed different colors. It just looked black if you didn't pay attention, but when the sunlight was really bright it started demanding it, undertones deep red-blue-green like bird's feathers. Not quail feathers, or any of the other small brown speckled runts that scattered at any loud noise, but the big ones; the ones with wide wingspans and trailing tails, cries bright and melodic as they soared through the canopy, far higher than Ace could reach.

Ace hated it.

* * *

And of course, even before they got forced into this whole mess _(friends, _what a joke), Sabo wouldn't shut up about her. From a three word description, if that. Idiot.

* * *

She's surprisingly decent when she's not being a stick-in-the-mud judging asshole.

He always saw it in her eyes, that wariness, different from the disdain and the hate but close enough that he _hates _it fiercely-

But that's all gone and he figures she was genuinely afraid of him, before, which makes him feel not guilty exactly but not… great. Not that it's his job to make random girls not-afraid of him. He doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks.

But she's so…

He doesn't know how he missed it before.

He understands why she treats Luffy the way she does, now, begrudgingly, so that's one bad mark against her gone. And that hated look in her eyes is gone, too, leaving behind something he can't figure out. And she's not _weak, _exactly, not anymore, getting better at punching and fighting faster than even he and Sabo did (though of course he's not gonna tell her that), way faster than the crybaby (even though 'crybaby' sounds way too affectionate, even in his head, damn).

And she saved Sabo's life.

(When she was bleeding on the riverbank, that dæmon of hers standing over her body and snarling, eyes wild, Sabo pushed away and _safe, _he felt his view of her shift like tectonic plates, inexorable and permanent.

He can't, for the life of him, figure out her motive.)

The fact that all the stuff he hated about her before isn't there anymore (or that from a different angle, perspective shifted, it's less hateable and more understandable, which he's not gonna think too hard about, thanks) means that she's at the very least tolerable.

He wishes it was only that.

She _guides _(he can't think of another way to phrase how she pokes Luffy towards certain conclusions, matter-of-fact and cajolingly) and teases Luffy like a pro - makes the kid happy, as stupid as that sounds, and as stupid as Ace feels for noticing - banters whipcrack sharp with Sabo and takes to fighting with determination, treats him politely and includes him without being overbearing or too obvious about it. She mutters all these little jokes, quiet, in Luffy's ear that make him laugh like Dadan's dæmon Koro does, that make a reluctant smile sneak up on Ace whether he wants it to or not.

She's waiting for him to do something, sort of, or maybe just waiting for him to talk to her at all. So he does.

It's awkward until it isn't, and when she teases him for the first time and _smiles _at him, all that pensive attention turned up bright and focused on him like a spotlight, he stares like an idiot. He's seen her smile, before, but it was always from the side or less wide or not _at _him. Hearing her say something clever and getting one-hundred-percent of her attention and a _smile _on top of that feels like-

He doesn't know exactly what it feels like but all the words flood from his brain like spilled soup and he splutters.

And she _keeps doing it. _He doesn't even hate it, which _sucks, _because if he really did and he told her to stop then he knows she would. She listens to what he says to her, listens to what _ everyone _says to her, whether it's Luffy's excited rambling about the pluses and minuses of each type of meat in the jungle (Ace has no idea how she listens to that one) or Sabo's (heavily embellished) adventure stories (half of which Ace is in!) or even Ace's own advice, little pointers he can't resist giving her when she always _hears _him.

She hears him.

So she stops being hateable and starts being alright, and Luffy's kind of alright, too, smiley little bastard (seriously, who the hell smiles _that _much?), all that grinning and energetic enthusiasm wearing Ace's spiky defenses down (seriously, _who _taught that kid to smile so wide? he needs to have words with them), so they're both kind of alright and dammit.

And then he _likes _them, as time passes and he feels his face twisting into smiles more often. He talks because there are people to listen, smiles because they smile and he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to, shares scraps of opinion and thoughts and feelings offhandedly until things build and build and build and then-

Things happen too fast and now they're here. You can see his problem, can't you?

He doesn't know what being happy feels like, doesn't think he ever will, but if it feels anything like this, he thinks he wants it.

* * *

And then everything gets out of hand and Ace has a family now. Shit.

He wanted to say _brothers _with Luffy and Sabo, but Valentine sure ain't a sister to him, so that was a no-go. He doesn't have the right to claim them as brothers, anyways, so maybe it's for the best.

He spent too much time planning that little sake-sharing ceremony and then way longer hesitating about it, eyeing the bottle of sake and stolen cups he'd hidden under the loose floorboard of the kitchen every time he passed. He's surprised nobody noticed him glancing at it every time they went out the door, he felt damn obvious about it.

But it happened and now they're all family. They can't leave.

No takebacks.

Selfish or not, Ace has what he wants. And he can't put a name to the feeling in his chest, but whatever it is, it isn't the sort of thing that wants to let people go.

* * *

The tenacious, possessive fear creeps up on him the whole run into Foosha (he hasn't seen the streets and buildings in years, a sickening nostalgia tugging at his gut, and they look smaller- or is he just taller?), until he and Sabo are holding Luffy back with hands over his mouth as Val hugs a green-haired woman with a headcloth that looks a lot like her. Val's mom, obviously. _Makino. _

Ace hates her immediately on principle, for what she's about to do (like hell Ace is gonna let her steal Luffy and Val away, he'll grab 'em and run when he has to, he's tense and ready to lunge at any given moment), but that lasts about as long as it takes for him to see Val's shaking shoulders and understand that she's crying.

_Aw, hell. _

Val calls something out, voice clear and high and disturbingly fragile, and Sabo lets go of Luffy. With Ace's fingers already gone slack, Luffy slips out of their grip - damn kid is tiny but _slippery, _it's gotta be the rubber - and sprints out and-

Ace can't really stand to look at two of the most important people in his life walking out of it, so he swallows down the lump in his throat and looks away.

* * *

She's so _nice. _Is she really Val's mom? (The fact that Val even _has _a mom is a huge slap in the face until he meets Makino, and then it's an even bigger one because how could Val and Luffy leave _this? _

Should've figured that they didn't leave of their own free will.)

Turns out he didn't need to think so hard about when he's gonna grab them and run. Apparently, Makino doesn't hate him and Sabo on sight (who knew?), which is quite honestly ridiculous, considering that Ace is pretty sure he hasn't met an adult even once that hasn't immediately despised or ignored him before. Not that he can recall.

Guess Val's weird tolerance for demon blood runs in the family.

* * *

He can see it 'cause their faces are basically the same shape, but Makino's got her hair up (and the bits he sees shine just green, nothin' else) and she's so much _softer _than Val.

(Valentine can be kind, can even be nice, but she's never soft with anyone but Luffy.)

Anyways, Makino can cook delicious food and she's tall and she owns a _whole bar _and and she's always smiling (so much more than Val does, he didn't ever think about it until he saw Makino and realized how not-often Val smiles and how quick her smiles go) and she gives _hugs. _Ace didn't realize you could get cuddled while standing (and not sleeping!) until Makino gave him a hug (what Luffy does to Val doesn't count, they're hardly even hugs and Luffy's weird, anyways, the stuff he does can't be relied on to show what normal people do). Ace immediately wants to ask for another one but he's not gonna push his luck, so he stays quiet instead and lets Sabo get his turn, staring and the ground and hoping he doesn't look too hopeful.

'Cuddling' (at least that's how Val puts it) is already so new to him. He's always wanted it, he thinks, but he couldn't put a name to the feeling, didn't think Sabo did either. Before this all happened, Val still let Luffy hang all over her (while he and Sabo pretended they weren't both looking) and now everything's changed so much that he might as well accept that they've inflicted their weird customs on him, so Ace guesses he (and Sabo) can't really escape. He'll have to tolerate it.

He tells himself this very firmly.

He kinda thought before now that touching wasn't allowed unless you were getting hit. Once he stopped being really little, Dadan started shoving him off her whenever he came near and started getting the point across more clearly not long after that, so he got the hint pretty quickly.

Touching is only allowed if you're really little, or if you're a baby. Same with crying, and helplessness, and asking for help. Babies only.

Only apparently touching is allowed? If you're not Dadan or the rest of the bandits. (And helping too, sometimes, but he's not gonna think about that right now.)

Val and Luffy don't hit him (don't try outside of spars, anyways, not that they can even when they _do _try, but that's different 'cause it's training), and they don't try to take him off guard (and he knows Val really _could _hit him if she tried outside a spar, it's stupid but he lets his guard down around all three of them) or smack him around when they get mad, which is the most surprising thing, 'cause even _Sabo _used to try and do it and Ace would hit him back, 'til Val and Luffy joined up with them for real and things got different.

Luffy doesn't get really frustrated practically at all unless something happens to his hat (lesson learned), and Val doesn't get mad ever, anyways, so he guesses they just haven't ever gotten mad enough at him to hit him yet? Whatever. If the price for cuddling is hitting later, he doesn't really care. He can take it.

'Cause Ace has all these things in his chest that he carries.

They're always with him, tied in a knot, tight and snarly and sparking like tangled yarn or snakes or fire. It makes him mad and makes him mean, but he can't get rid of it. That's just how it is.

Except it goes quiet, when he's with them.

The same way it went quiet and got pushed far far back when they all made the promise, and how it gets muted when they're all laughing and running together and talking. It gets louder when he's alone and louder when he gets hit, but it goes quiet when things are different. And when they all curl up together, he doesn't have to do anything to make it go quiet except let himself do it.

He just has to let himself feel the press of Luffy or Sabo or Val, feel the warmth and the pressure, and that's it. Like magic.

So if hitting later is the price for cuddling, Ace thinks it's worth it. It makes him too warm to give up.

He doesn't know what happiness is, but if this is anywhere close to it, he wants more of it. Even if he can't really see going anywhere better than this.

* * *

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

(The murmuring darkness in his chest crests into a scream-)

* * *

Her hair is gone.

This is, probably, at the end of everything, the least of his worries.

_I mean, _he thinks to himself, very seriously, worrying at some of the bandages wrapped around the scabbed-over chafing on his arm, _the whole head-cloth thingie looks good on Makino, but then again, everything looks good on Makino. _

Now that everything's over (fucking _hopefully), _Val's started wearing her hair the way her mom does (under a _kerchief, _he heard her say it out loud in that even way she has, weirdly striking new eyes and all, not a hint of a smile on her), and he's begrudgingly put-out about it. He _gets _it, but-

_(Porchemy holding her up and her every feature is painted with pain and confusion and _terror, _fingers scrabbling at the meaty palm yanking at her hair and she looks so small, strung up like a fish on a line and so expressive but he never wanted it like this, only smiles ever ever ever and if she doesn't stop making that expression right now he's going to SCREAM-) _

He still doesn't know what the hell it is, but it figures that his conquistador's hakay or whatever the hell it's supposed to be exploded when Porchemy started- whatever. _Whatever. _It doesn't matter. The bastard is dead now, just like Bluejam. Val killed him. It's over. It's over.

_(Fire and thick black smoke, burning burning burning, Luffy sobbing, Dadan on fire and her hyena shrieking and maniacal laughter and a lobster boiled red and an agonized scream cutting off into nothing as it dissolves into golden, murky-water-) _

He doesn't linger at all on that particular train of memories and thought.

Anyways, she's started hiding her hair and he doesn't like it. Not that he's gonna say anything about it. Obviously. As if he's some kinda idiot that'd talk about wanting to see Val's hair.

At least Luffy doesn't have any sorta filter.

_Nice one, _Ace thinks approvingly, nodding a little despite himself as Luffy darts behind her and starts prodding at the back of her head. She looks not-annoyed, as she always bafflingly is at Luffy's antics, but she does look…

Selfconscious.

_Aw, dammit._

* * *

(He can't get that first sight of her out of his mind.

His chest had been aching and painful and it _hurt, _he didn't know why, the ache throbbing and creeping insidious up to make his eyes sting and his throat choked.

Later, he'll realize it was heartbreak.

Because when he sees them, walking through the trees and holding hands, looking battered and bruised but _alive, _Sabo (not gone) and Valentine wholly, breathtakingly _here, _he feels the ache crack and shatter until everything is raw, immediate, crushing and renewing, fizzing as it wells up and pours out of him, golden like sunlight and twice as harsh.

He needs to see them.

_"Val!" _he screams, struggling against the pain, the ropes, a choked cry rising up in his throat. "_Sabo!")_

* * *

(And then, sooner than he could count the passing of the days, her hair is hidden.

Hidden under kerchiefs like Makino, tucked away in plaits and concealed under fabric.

Even now, he's not sure why he feels the loss so keenly.)

* * *

Aurelia had shifted into a peacock, once.

He'd been quietly disappointed at the lack of magnificent tailfeathers (Makino's book made them look eyecatching, eyespots like poisonous moths or keen lamp-eyed owls), but before she changed back into one of her many preferred forms, he'd noticed something.

The bobbed crest was one thing, and the rest of her bodyfeathers were mundanely brown, but-

Shimmering along Aurelia's neckfeathers was a shifting, lustrous array of deep blue-green.

(All that was missing was the red.)

He closes his eyes.

* * *

_(Today, _he thinks to himself, firmly, _I'm gonna talk to her.)_

_—_

_—_

_—_

_—_

_—_

**Notes:**

(Song for what follows: Moth's Wings - Passion Pit.

Put down your sword and crown / come lay with me on the ground...)

Also, I have strong feelings about the topic of hitting kids.

Oda plays it up for gags, but getting physically punished in any way - especially as a child - greatly affects the development of your attitude about physical touch. I haven't touched upon it before now (no pun intended) past Makino's effective ban against Garp using corporal punishment against Luffy and Val (something like if you think you're laying a finger on my kids, Garp-san, you're dead wrong, though Makino wishes it was just that simple), but I address it here.

I'm not gonna spend any more time on it unless it directly affects character dynamics (which it will, in the future), but if it comes up later, I assure you it'll be in the way of 'character dynamics, ooh, what fun' and not 'Garp, you're a good person, stop being ignorant and hitting your tiny adorable grandson.'

...Because when you frame it like that, it does sound pretty shitty, doesn't it?

I have complicated feelings about Garp. He's indisputably someone who tries to do right, but because he's shackled himself to the marines (in my opinion), the polarized sides of 'pirate' and 'marine' limit him heavily from doing what he knows to be the right thing in many cases.

(Why isn't he an admiral? Too many eyes on him.)

He wants very badly to do good. He also - as Makino would put it - is a good person who makes dumb mistakes and needs to be told clearly when he's wrong.

Anyways, so many things in such a short interlude! Valentine's hair color! (She's got special hair, goddamn it.) Ace's perspective! (In a very limited series of snippets that exclude some very interesting events.) Ace! More Ace!

I don't plan to have these interludes frequently, but this is a turning point in the story and I'm trying to figure out how to get where I want to go. I know where I'm going, and I have a lot of fun stuff planned for the rest of their time on the island, but I'm unsure of exactly how I want to tell it... so if anyone has any strong opinions, I'd be curious to hear them!

That being said, everybody loves Ace (myself included), and getting into his head was... worthwhile. I could've made this a hell of a lot longer, but writers block smacked me in the face, so certain things from Ace's perspective will just have to remain a mystery.

Thank you all for your wonderful, fantastic interest in Val's story. Your comments keep me going, and as usual, this chapter is dedicated to you!


	10. Chapter 10: Hum

If there's any reassuring thought she can cling to, it's that eating a devil fruit doesn't turn your soul into an anchor.

She's not sure exactly why. According to her previous (and ever-murkier) knowledge, devil fruits have the capability to alter their users (consumers?) at a molecular level. The fact that whatever property turns the users into 'anchors' - turns the entirety of the sea against them, more like - doesn't do the same to the user's soul is…

Reassuring.

_Still, _she thinks mutinously. _How is it fair that Ilirya can frolic in the water while I'm stuck on the shore? _

The chilly days of pre-spring have come and gone. The sun beats down overhead, the sky blue and cloudless, soaking into her like light shed off a heatlamp.

And she does feel a bit like a lizard, actually.

Ilirya is an otter, cutting through the small eddies of the narrow river with ease. Here, where the current moves slow, the river itself is glassy, almost entirely free of whitewater (good for swimming, bad for devil fruit users), deep enough that none of their feet touch the bottom if they try to stand. The bank is rocky, too, not muddy, which does wonders for the water quality. Deeper in the forest, most of the rivers have banks of mud and a fast-moving riverflow, so they had to be choosy.

She sighs, eyes drifting shut, enjoying the sun on her back and the calming wash of the shallow water. When was the last time she'd gone swimming? Her dip in the bay with Luffy, she thinks. If you can even call that a swim, daring rescue by Shanks notwithstanding.

She can hear the shouts and taunts, just as familiar and reassuring as the sunshine. Sabo and Ace are properly paddling around - slicing through the river like freshwater eels, movements practiced and strong - and Luffy is perched precariously on Ran's back, his dæmon in the form of a massive hippopotamus, Luffy himself shouting encouragements as Sabo tries to dunk Ace under the water.

Valentine is belly-down in the shallows (pebbles, thankfully, not mud), drowsy and lazily indolent with the warm sun beating on her shoulders and legs.

She's got her old blue pair of shorts and one of her ratty tank tops on, boots and socks discarded on the far bank. She's considering running back to the hideout without them on, honestly, and damn the consequences. There's nothing worse than the feeling of wet socks.

She wiggles her bare toes in the clear water.

The fronts of her shirt and shorts are soaked through, drifting gently in the shallows, fabric rucked up to her ribs, but it's nice. Her back is dry, sunwarmed, and her toes are pointing towards the riverbank. A lovely arrangement.

...As if on cue, Ran sinks deeper into the river, Luffy lets out a yelp, and a small wave floods towards her.

She makes a dissatisfied grumbling noise as - _cold! - _water splashes over her face, eyes scrunching shut. "Raaaan," she calls out, ominous. The bottom half of her bangs are soaked, now, plastered to her cheeks.

(She's just grateful that the rest of her hair is up - clumsily done and long as it took her, she did it herself - coiled and pinned out of harm's way. And she's happy that her kerchief is on the far bank with her socks and shoes.

Knowing the baffling tendency for things to go awry whenever all four of them are in the same place, she made the necessary call.)

"Sorry!" Ran shouts back, girlish and cheerful, rising back out of the water, massive, round, and hugely mahogany in color, wiggling a little as Luffy clings to her back, and Luffy laughs, full of joy. (Perched on Ran, he's got the size _and _the tenacity of an ant on a log.)

She squinches her eyes open, still narrowed to keep the water (relatively clean, but still) out of her eyes.

With a roving gaze, she manages to catch sight of Halia - a _massive _rainbow trout chasing Ilirya around the pools of clear, deep water - and Rels, a caiman with shiny eyes just peeping above the waterline.

She drifts (figuratively, not literally), made warmly sleepy by the submersion and the sun. She's stupidly vulnerable right now, on her belly and weaponless in the water, but she trusts the boys (Sabo and Ace, at least) to keep half an eye out for danger. That, and she trusts her budding observation haki to sense if anyone with ill-intent comes close.

Speaking of. Ace and Sabo are swimming closer to her, hints of blue and orange. She can't detect anything beyond the vague feeling of their presences, tuning out the soft murmur of their voices and the sloshing as they move through the water, and the feeling of them ever-nearer - proximity is an easy thing to detect, interestingly, especially when someone's in active motion - makes her crack an eyelid open-

She gasps as they seize her wrists and yank.

The gasp morphs into a shriek as she's submerged, _panic- _

Ace and Sabo catch her, easily holding her, weight made weightless by the water, and her belly lurches in _fear _as she clings to the nearest pair of bare shoulders she can reach, mind going fuzzy and muzzled. She hears the sound of laughter, though as she fails to make any audible sounds of hilarious panic, she hears it trail off into low, tentative questions. Concern. She wheezes, coughing as she inhales a spray of river water sent flying by her thrashing, and she _chokes, _fingers digging into the bare flesh of whoever the hell's to her right.

"-ey, you alright? Val?"

"Fuck you guys," she wheezes, clinging onto (who she now recognizes as) Sabo with a death grip, holding on for dear life. She's reassuringly surrounded and buoyed by the drenched and gangly limbs of the both of them, and she knows they won't let her drown, but just. "Fuck you forever."

"Huh." Ace grabs her under the arms, hauls her towards him through the sloshing water (Sabo lets go of her easily, _traitor) _and slings her onto his back like a wet kitten. Or luggage. She wheezes. "You're just like Luffy when he gets in the bath."

_Wasn't there a better way to test this? _she wants to say, maybe with an incredulous eyebrow raise and a sarcastic bite to the words, but all that comes out is a pathetic _hnrgh. _She uses the little agency left in her arms to coil them tight around Ace's shoulders, winding them around his neck in what vaguely amounts to a chokehold, twitching her legs tighter around his waist from where he's got his hands loosely curled under her thighs, holding her up in the suspended weightlessness of the water.

She's stable. She's submerged, but stable.

…And now that the panic of near-drowning has left her, she can sort of see what they were going for. Practical joke or not, though, she's pissed.

"You'll both pay for this," she enunciates slowly, head fuzzy, knowing that they'd never let her drown (she trusts them with her life and more, after all), but that retaliation is simply necessary. She can't let a challenge like this go unpunished.

Ace snorts in laughter, and Sabo grins. "Alright, wet noodle," Ace murmurs, and she chokes on another shriek as he starts wading deeper into the water.

* * *

Well, that's fast-forwarding.

Real life does not conveniently skip ahead a couple of months to when she has the slightest idea of what she's doing, no siree. Life is frustratingly linear, atrociously difficult, and as she lives it day-by-day, her problems are inescapable and nigh insurmountable, not _solved- _

Anyways.

Life gets back to the new normal. Hunting, again, and cooking a lot of their own meals over the fire, mostly, massive megafauna taken down with utter ease in a group of four.

(Valentine is _incredibly _grateful for Makino's constant no-strings-attached supply of fruits and vegetables whenever they sneak back for brief stops in the village or else she's pretty sure they'd all have scurvy.)

(And eventually, they start hunting in pairs of two, challenging themselves with the vicious restriction of less overwhelming numbers, but that comes later. For now, they're just happy to hunt together again.)

She laments her merely serviceable cooking skills. She's absorbed the bare minimum from simple observation - Makino is a fantastic cook (though her baking is only passable) and it's impossible not to learn _something _from so many hours in the kitchen, asking questions whenever the fancy strikes her - but she's afraid that most of her knowledge comes from Before, even fuzzy and instinctual as it is. Knowledge enough to be aware that for passable cooking, all you really need is attentiveness, the bare minimum of knowledge, and a good head on your shoulders.

That, and a willingness to learn and improve. But then again, that goes for pretty much everything.

(She's not sure she can claim any common sense, but she's got the rest.)

They liberate a huge frying pan from Dadan (a much more palatable move than taking anything from Makino's kitchen), and Valentine tends to use it more often than not when they're not just roasting their catch over the fire on a spit. (Which has its own merits, to be entirely honest. Any bite of juicy, freshly fire-roasted meat tends to be delicious, even with the gaminess of everything they catch around here.)

Ace, surprisingly, takes well to cooking, expression twisting into relaxed neutrality as he watches the rice or potatoes (or whatever variety of the filling basics that they've taken from Dadan) sizzling in the pan, poking at it with the spatula (again, liberated from Dadan, because the first time they tried this, Luffy enthusiastically went to stir the potatoes with a branch scooped off the ground and despite her lunging attempts, she failed to stop him and- well, things imploded, the way they usually do when she can't manage to cut Luffy off at the pass).

Ace has got all of Luffy's enthusiasm translated into a more intent interest (he likes to eat, he likes food, therefore: creating his own food is a good idea) and none of Luffy's utterly disastrous recklessness around anything and everything cooking-related, though he burns his eager fingers (and undercooks the meat) plenty of times before he begrudgingly learns his lesson. Ace is impatient, but he's got a good head for tactics, which translates strangely fine to cooking. He'll never be winning any awards, but by the time he hits adulthood, Valentine's reasonably sure he'll be able to properly feed himself without being poisoned.

...She doesn't want to think about Luffy anywhere near uncooked food.

Sabo doesn't have much of an instinct for cooking, but he always ends up being pretty good at whatever he puts his mind to. He has zero intuitive grasp of how to season and sear things (whatever he made at first was either ludicrously under or oversalted - sprinkled with rock salt stolen from the massive storeroom barrel at Dadan's - and unevenly cooked, bloodily raw and charred in turns), but as time goes on, Sabo applies himself with persistent determination (as he does with all things), and his acute desire to learn dictates that eventually he develops a serviceable schema for seasoning and basic cooking methods. He, like Ace, won't ever be a master chef - maybe _especially _won't be a master chef - but he won't burn the meat. (Often.) That's the most important thing.

Valentine resolves to get her promised cooking lessons from Makino as soon as it's safe to be back in the village for extended periods of time. She's the best out of the three, but that's really not saying much.

* * *

It takes them a couple days to start sparring again.

Valentine's the one to bring it up. The rest of the boys seem… not _reluctant, _exactly (and Luffy is enthusiastic about getting stronger as ever), but the general mood doesn't radiate overt excitement (even for Ace, who's usually pumped about anything and everything involved with sparring and competition). For the past couple days back, they've been hunting and lazing around, all of them a little clingier than normal.

She doesn't regret that, but it's time to start again.

Thankfully, their sessions in the grassy clearing under the sunshine don't seem any different from before. Although, of course, Valentine is still frustratingly behind Ace and Sabo in terms of ability. She knows it, really, but after everything, she'd think that-

Well, it doesn't matter what she'd think. And anyways, she _has _improved. In the space of just a few days, which is a bit too ridiculous to stand thinking about if she focuses on it for too long, because she remembers killing Porchemy and fighting Bluejam for her and Ace's lives and Luffy's safety for over an hour, and-

They slot back into a comfortable rhythm with each other, bantering and quiet and comfortable taunts, and in a breathtaking moment of clarity, it almost brings tears to her eyes. _This _is what she was fighting for. After it all, she was afraid she'd never feel it again, not the same way.

(And it's not the same, but isn't that a good thing? Everybody's a different person from day to day, and Valentine can't even imagine who she'll be in a month, a year, a decade.

She can't cling to who she was. Down that path lies dark truths.)

To her disgruntled irritation, whatever the hell her new sense is - _maybe _Observation Haki, she can't think of any other option, at least none that aren't extraordinarily troubling - it doesn't do her any good in spars. The rush of combat pushes all sense of tinted flickers from her mind, jarring and all-consuming, and honestly, what's the point of spending time trying to focus on where people are, anyways? She knows exactly where they are. Right in front of her.

So, her fledgling sense of Observation is useless in a fight. Great.

She still can't win against Ace or Sabo (neither of which are going easy on her, which is a relief, after everything that happened), but she knows she's improving. Fighting with people above her level pulls at her abilities _hard, _teaches her through blood and sweat exactly when to duck, when to punch, precisely the _(twitch of the hand and the narrowing of the eyes-) _tells people give when they're about to go for your gut, your head, your side. Theory is all well and good, but in a hand-to-hand brawl, the only thing that works for her are habits and knowledge beaten into her, writ into her muscles from a thousand fights. She strives constantly to improve, to learn, picking apart Ace and Sabo's maneuvers and peppering them with questions after her inevitable defeat, and though the latter two are somewhat taken aback by her exacting enthusiasm, they're pushed just a bit farther by her, too. She has no idea where they'd be otherwise (has no point of reference for their abilities other than vague senses and impressions), but she can feel them all growing and improving step by difficult step. Luffy included.

Luffy is similarly serious about getting better, though he shows it differently than her. He's always strove to become strong (strong, stronger, strongest), but he starts doubling down on his devil fruit training, teaching himself to use it through determination alone.

Speaking of.

The day after they start sparring again, she slips away from the group - throws an _I'll be back later _over her shoulder - and heads towards the clover meadow.

The weather is less lovely, today, overcast and chilly without the sun to ward off the cold. The morning had been cooler, so she still has her long sleeved shirt on (a bit disgruntled she can't wear her new crimson sleeveless top, but whatever, she still has the kerchief and the shorts), and the meadow is sedate, quiet, clover rustling in the breeze.

She settles in the center of the field of clover, crosslegged, hands resting on her knees. She closes her eyes.

"Can you go to the edge of your limits?" Valentine murmurs to Ilirya.

Wordlessly, Ilirya complies.

He traces his way to the edge of the meadow, slowly, and in the first moment she feels that _pull _\- somewhere between fifteen and twenty feet away - her observation snaps back into her head like a rubber band.

"Stop," she calls out, calm, brisk, and Ilirya stills.

She can feel it. The 'pull.'

Whenever a dæmon travels too far, their human starts to feel it. Supposedly, it's the same for dæmons, too. A distracting, insistent sense of separation, a desire to reconnect, a creeping tendril of uneasiness. _Come back to me. Come back. _

But this is good. This is necessary.

"Stay right there," she says, and slowly, laboriously, her senses reach out again.

It's almost harder to do it on purpose, but the keen edge of discomfort brought by Ilirya's separation makes her senses reach just that much farther, hungry to feel, to touch, to reconnect. Before, when she was doing it without noticing, it was entirely random and natural, bursts of insight integrated so seamlessly with her constantly-running train of thought that she didn't even _realize _she was developing Observation Haki until she was describing the damn thing out loud. Now, it's like grasping for a consistent, shifting harmony, Ilirya - far away enough to feel distinct, a bubble of life, a spark - an odd echo of shifting sensation and color that she can only describe as… familiar.

_Me. _

A bead of sweat trickles down her nape, mind hazy.

It's like… when you first start to harmonize, it happens in bursts. At least it did for her. That intuitive leap, that _reach, _feeling the otherizing tang of the harmony falling into reality, understated and reassuring as a hand slipping into yours- that comes way, way later. Years later. Right now, hitting the right frequency is still a temporary and incredible thing, resonance passing perfect like ships in the night, beautiful and fleeting. Right now, it's-

Hard. _So _hard. There's that nagging sense of reaching and not _quite _grasping, feeling around clumsily in a dark, ever-shifting room she's yet to come to know where the answers change every half-second and she hasn't even realized the bare bones minimum, the _question _being asked. It's frustrating and discouraging, and she doesn't have anyone to say whether she's doing it right or wrong.

She's not sure there even _is _a right and a wrong, when it comes to this, to be fair - maybe 'right' is just what works and 'wrong' is what doesn't - but comparing observation haki to harmonizing works for her. She's always loved to sing (right?), though she doesn't really… do it, here. She's not one to sing in the shower (bath, in this case), not one to even sing aloud without music carrying the tune unless she's truly, ridiculously happy, so she doesn't often get the chance.

(That's a bit depressing to think about.)

Makino does. Her mom's voice is beautiful, melodic and lilting like a songbird, and it sends a pang through her heart that aches with fierce sorrow. Reminders. Kind or cruel, the world is unapologetic about those.

Valentine has inherited it. (Echoes upon echoes.) She's used to the sound of her own voice, now, but singing aloud and hearing a different lofty soprano used to make her throat choke up and her melodies go offkey.

(Luffy loves it when Makino sings, closes his eyes and smiles happily whenever she does. Makino used to sing them lullabies as they snuggled up to her, when they were little, one of the rare times when Luffy would be still and silent, utterly content. He'd stay talkative and wiggly during the story, excited, but as soon as Makino would start to hum, he'd go quiet, eyes glittering and wide in the dark.

He loves music.

He loves when Valentine sings, too, though she usually only does it when they're sleepy and cuddling and she knows he won't ask her any questions about it.)

None of the boys really share her predisposition, though they can all at least carry a basic tune. Ace's voice is surprisingly nice, while Sabo's is… not pitchy (that's the best she can say) and Luffy is much the same in that respect.

...What the hell was she trying to do, again?

_Right. _She furrows her brow in determination, exhales in a sigh. _Observation haki. _

* * *

Ace asks her a question.

It's offhand, barely audible over the noise of Luffy pestering Sabo nearby, the smell of cooking python mingling mouthwateringly with the aromatic sizzle of sunny-side-up snake eggs in the frying pan, and-

The juice of the meat, strung up on the spit directly over the cast iron pan, drips a steady drizzle of sizzling liquid flavor onto the eggs below. _This was, _she thinks, saliva flooding her mouth and stomach grumbling its eager complaints, _a very good idea. Thank you, brain. _

"What would you say to me and Sabo and Luffy becoming brothers?"

Valentine blinks.

She glances up, spatula in hand, to the crouching figure of Ace, just behind her, tugging gently on one of her bangs to get her attention, his eyes shadowed and his brows furrowed.

(Ever since she's started wearing kerchiefs, he's been oddly persistent about pulling her hair.)

"What would I… say to it?" Valentine repeats blankly, eyes following the movement as Ace lets her hair slip out of his (relatively clean, thank the heavens) fingers. Ilirya pokes his head out of her shirt, and - seeing Rels in the shape of a colorful salamander on Ace's shoulder - shifts to a red-throated anole, slipping out of her collar and scurrying down her arm to leap to Ace's forearm, scrambling up to his shoulder to harass his dæmon, brazen as you please.

Ace's eyes dart to the playfighting dæmons for only a moment, arms crossed over his knees, mouth downturned in a frown, before he nods tightly.

_Oh, _she thinks dizzily, lips parting. _He's asking me if it's okay. He's worried. _

"Nothing would make me happier," she says, honest, and smiles at the startled, triumphant, almost savage grin that breaks over his face.

* * *

(She pretends to stay asleep as Ace shakes Luffy and Sabo awake.

It's the dead of night, the witching hour, but the night is balmy and the breezes are gentle, tugging at the blankets, always whispering as they sleep in the treetops. She stays pliant and unresisting as rubbery limbs are extracted from where they tangle with hers, and Ace quiets Luffy's loud _what-? _with a hissing _shhhh, _clapping a hand over his mouth, already reaching for Sabo.

(The inky blanket of darkness gives the air a dreamy, unreal quality, especially so while she keeps her eyes closed and pretends.)

She drifts back out of unconsciousness again when they haul themselves onto the platform an unknown stretch of blurry time later, feeling as much as hearing their riotous smiles and poorly stifled giggles and the shifting weight of their dæmons _(shh, you're gonna wake Val up!)_, flooding back into the tallest-tower open air common room of their hideout as they settle around her and slip under the blankets smelling of salt and blood and growing things. She feels her eyelid twitch as Luffy wiggles under the plush, warm comforter tucked around her and snuggles against her, arms stretching to wrap around her torso as he nuzzles the cold tip of his nose into her neck.

She keeps her breathing even and her eyes closed as she feels the quiet thumps of movement and shifting blankets around her, someone else slipping under and settling on her other side - _shades of blue, hints of happy, familiar, Sabo _\- with their back to her side and their scratchy curls pillowing on her bicep, sighing contentedly.

She can't help her small smile at Ace's familiar litany of quiet grumbles as he searches for a spot, but by then, she's already falling back asleep.)

* * *

As if he even had to ask.

* * *

She very carefully does not remark on their mirrored cut-up palms, the following morning. All she does is rouse Ace and Sabo with handfuls of ice cold water to the face bright and early, cackling at their bleary-eyed curses, scrambling down the tree to escape.

(...Come to think of it, that may have been the catalyst for the summer swimming prank.)

She leaves the roll of bandages in plain sight.

(Luffy is the only one who escapes her tricks. He can take it, to be sure, but she has a soft spot for him. What's the harm in indulging it?)

* * *

Sleeping piled all together isn't always restful.

"Ace," Valentine groans, slurring her words into Luffy's hair. "Stop… moving."

Ace, whose arm is slung across her torso, face pressed into his pillow and facedown on his belly, gives her a muffled _hgrk _in response.

She's holding Luffy in her arms, the big spoon to his little spoon (at least _someone _can sleep through the whole night, even if he sleep-murmurs like nobody's business and drools like a leaky faucet), her back to Ace and Sabo, warm and toasty under the blankets. A little _too _warm and toasty, honestly, but it's not summer yet, and the pinnacle of spring gives the nights a lovely, warm cast.

And then Sabo - from Ace's other side - wakes up with a slurred _whazzat, _and Ace gives another muffled _hgrk _as he contorts to his right, grabs the nearest warm body (in this case, Valentine) and _yanks. _

She emits a muffled wheeze as the breath is knocked out of her (fucking _hell _but their strength is getting ridiculous), face falling in preemptive dismay as Luffy faceplants onto the blanket.

_God dammit, _she wants to say, except she really is tired, sleep thickening her tongue beyond eloquence and even simple speech. Luffy's face screws up in the precursor to a wail - she's seen him wake up and launch straight into tears often enough to know the signs - so she reaches, pulling him closer and dragging him across the scant inches of blanketed floor to snuggle back in her arms.

Luffy quiets, settles, and Valentine's expression sours. She's trapped now, immobilized between two lethal snugglers, but-

_Ace, _she thinks darkly. _You are so gonna get it tomorrow. _

* * *

She's humming a tune.

It's the first time she's been happy enough, relaxed enough, to sing, since… since she pulled the trigger. Everything's actually - really, honestly - fine, and there's no immediate looming threat to worry about, nothing that threatens to take her family away. Improving constantly is hard, and her devil fruit defies all known theories on what it could possibly do (brainstorm sessions with Sabo, held up in the lofty common room of the treehouse, just the two of them, start with endless possibilities and end with _we have no idea _for the nth time), but she's still got the opportunity to simply meander back from the river, basket full of washed clothes in hand. Ilirya's flitting iridescent-winged and fleeting along the spring flowers blooming off the side of the path, and her eyes flutter closed as she hums, warm, golden sunlight beaming down on her face as it filters through the trees.

It's lovely. Carefree moments to enjoy the sunshine and the clean air really are, truly, a priceless treasure. Not something to be taken for granted.

_Sing, little hummingbird, hum no more / you have the ears of the flowers in bloom... _

She hums, melodic and resonant, and on the _bloom, _she feels something catch.

The sustained note builds in her throat, her mouth, lips closed, and she feels it bounce.

Faster than she can even blink, it fills her mouth like syrup, and her lips part-

The blast explodes out like a starburst. A thunderclap of sound _roars _through the clearing - _D-sharp, _she thinks dizzily - and in a moment, it's gone.

She drops the laundry.

* * *

(I won't have my melodies / echoing off of these stone walls-)

* * *

"Hey, Luffy."

"Mm?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Mmhm." Luffy swallows his mouthful of food with a _gulp, _puffed-out hamster cheeks and all, and stares at her expectantly. "Whazzit, Vally?"

Myergh. Not her favorite nickname. "Just a quick question." She gestures at Ran - currently a raccoon scrabbling for scraps on the ground, so much like her person that it's almost absurd - pointedly. "Is Ran made of rubber, too?"

Luffy, who's already stuffed another huge bite of charred buffalo into his mouth (Sabo cooked today), speaks through his full mouthful. "Yah."

"...Good to know," she says, mind whirring, suspicion confirmed. She rises from her seat in the rocky dirt, giving Luffy an absent pat on the head as she passes him in her purposeful strides further into the forest. She passes a chatting Sabo and Ace, tosses an offhand _be back soon _over her shoulder. "Thanks, Luffy."

Ilirya perches on her shoulder, hawkshape, talons digging into her flesh, but she barely feels it.

(He might say _where are you going, _but she's already gone.)

* * *

"Condor's hokey," Luffy says seriously, and Valentine's forehead hits the table in front of her with a loud _smack._

"Luffy," Ace says, condescending, "it's conjuror's hokey."

Valentine emits a half-scream/half-groan aloud, yanking a pillow from the floor beside her knee and shoving it over her head in an attempt to drown the both of them out.

"Conqueror's Haki, idiots," Sabo says, but she can hear the laughter in his voice. He's laughing at her, dammit.

"You're killing me," she groans pitifully. "You really are. You're killing the only Valentine on Dawn Island. I'm endangered-"

Luffy shouts something, words strung together because he's blurring mid-tackle, knocking the breath out of her as the pillow goes flying (it smacks Ace in the forehead with a squawk) and as her head hits the floorboards and the sound of Sabo's laughter floods her ears, her expression of dismay only deepens, worsens.

_I give up, _she thinks, despairing, staring blankly at the wooden slats of the wall, Luffy yelling in her ear all the while.

* * *

_I'm never coming to the river again, _she thinks to herself grumpily, stomping out of the shallows, dripping water.

She ignores Sabo's laughing shouts and Ace's unrestrained, hysterical cackling. Luffy, the little traitor, is giggling too.

(The fact that hippopotamuses can even grin like that should be illegal.)

"Never again!" she shouts, not looking back, unwinding her soaking fishtail and wringing it out like a wet towel.

River water floods from her hair in a deluge.

She stares, disgruntled, at the whole water-dark length of it, clutching it in her hands, eyebrow twitching as the boys' laughter only increases in volume.

_Never again, _she vows.

* * *

(In the spring, Sabo turns eleven. Luffy turns eight.

She gets Sabo a book on the _real _history of nobility in Goa - complete contraband, of course, but she has her sources - and arranges for Makino to make enough blueberry pies to feed an army.

She struggles with what to get Luffy. Beyond his attachment to his strawhat, Luffy's not a materialistic person. He easily (and unerringly) recognizes other people's attachments - especially to important objects - but he has little to none of those attachments himself.

So she gets him a book.

_What's this, _he asks loudly, curious and expectant, holding it out in front of his face like one might hold a kitten to inspect, and she tells him.

_Physics of rubber, _she tells him, giving him a pat on the head. _Don't worry, I'll help you read it. We can figure it out together. _

The book is tattered and worn, the cover a simple deep blue, clearly patched together from new materials to hide its contents. The body of the work is undated, printing details lost to time, titled simply _a comprehensive overview of rubber and like materials _in scrawling, handwritten script on the inside cover, the body of the text neatly printed and littered with notes scribbled in the margins.

_Had to pull on some heavy connections to get this one, _Simmons had told her, handing it over, the whole, the incongruous simplicity of it belied by the incredible, impossible lengths she'd gone to get it. _It's from a bygone era. It's the most valuable thing I've ever gotten you, by far. _A long drag from his cigarette. _I'm sure you'll make it up to me. _

She does. And it is, of course, worth it.)

* * *

She wakes up so fast that she misses the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

She's simply conscious, eyes wide open, tensing imperceptibly at the hand coming towards her-

And as soon as she tenses, she relaxes.

Just Sabo.

"Val," he whispers, hand making contact with her shoulder, rough from callouses but gentle as it can be. "Vee, wake up!"

Her eyes crack open and she shifts her lazy gaze to his silhouetted form, sitting up and still surrounded by blankets, staring out at the open half-walls and into the night. She focuses on Sabo - and the curled up form of Luffy, clearly recently pushed off of him, with the way Luffy's still clinging to Sabo's extended hand and forearm - blinking sleepily at yet another new nickname.

"Whazzit," she manages. Ace, throwing off heat like a furnace and plastered to her back, shifts and grumbles in his sleep.

"Look," Sabo whispers, pointing, and she does.

Her eyes widen.

This high up, they have an unfettered view of the forest, the sky. The open walls of their treehouse let the cold air in, but they let in the nighttime sounds, too, the rustling leaves and the starlight. And raining down-

Meteors, burning up in the atmosphere, trailing light and fire, burning into nothing before they hit the earth.

The velvety black sky is lit up like fireworks, unearthly and beautiful. It looks like the stars themselves are falling from the heavens, painfully lovely, and her lips part, breathless, awed, struck silent by the sheer beauty of it.

"A meteor shower." She's smiling slow and wonderous, feeling bubbling in her chest like champagne, and even as she speaks she's already extracting herself from the clingy limbs of Ace, skillful and practiced as she shakes him awake and pulls the snoozing form of Luffy into her arms.

She stands effortlessly, shedding the blankets and Ace's protesting grumbles and grasping hands, absently categorizing the feeling of Luffy easily latching onto her, Sabo tracing his way out from the warm haven of their blankets out to the deck.

She's struck, as she stands, by the sight of Sabo, his silhouette against the meteor shower.

Luffy's rousing gradually, more and more conscious, as she piggybacks him across the floor and outside, bare feet padding silently across the soft blankets and the sanded-smoothness of the planks. She steps onto the deck, the cold air hitting her like a punch, and-

She looks up.

"Wake up, Luffy-Lu," she murmurs, eyes bright.

"Vally, s'too early… five more min'ts…"

Quiet energy twinges, sparks, pensive and subdued. (Content.) "If you wake up, you can see something amazing."

She cuts her gaze to the side, tracing the murmured, sleep-rough words to Ace, standing a couple feet away on their precarious deck and looking up, up to the falling meteors, the stars.

Valentine doesn't love heights but the deck seems different under the night sky, stable and unmoored all at once. The canopy sits below them, rustling, the darkness and the night sounds lit up by the rain of meteors overhead, the glow throwing everything into flickering, irregular radiance, sporadic and harsh but incredibly beautiful. There's nothing around them but the open air, their fortress to their backs, and this high above the world it feels as if they're under cresting, frothing waves, breathing clean cold water in an ocean of falling stars.

Her gaze lingers on Ace's wild hair and bright eyes, the serene lines of his face, made soft and glowing in the starlight, before she turns her eyes skyward yet again.

"Thanks for waking us up, Sabo," she murmurs, leaning to bump her shoulder against his. Sabo's pale hair is painted almost white, his eyes dark and fathomless as they glance to her face, flickering over the silver, unearthly ring in her irises before flitting back up to the stars.

Their dæmons are still inside, fluffy and soft, curled up together amid the blankets.

"Whoa," Luffy whispers, awake at last, and then - for the first time in a long time - he goes completely, utterly quiet.

* * *

Valentine's on edge.

She's not sure if there's pressure in the air, or if the animals are acting strangely, or what the hell is off. All she knows is that she _knows. _Something is nagging at her, whispering, making her tilt her head consideringly as she _reaches- _

Therefore, she's not as surprised as she should be when her awareness spikes and Garp crashes through the trees, knocks their prey (a medium-sized snarling tiger) unconscious with a single punch over the head, and turns towards them.

"Shit," Sabo says. Alarmed, but not particularly inspired.

"Fuck," Ace adds, with more feeling, and Luffy parrots him enthusiastically.

Valentine sighs. She considers dropping the pipe in her hand (still the same one Ace gave her for her birthday, good quality holding up over months of wear and tear) to the ground, but thinks that'd be a tad too dramatic.

"Hello, Garp," she offers diplomatically, not a tinge of her felt bitterness in her voice, nodding in the direction of the hulking, gray-haired, hibiscus-patterned shirt clad disaster incarnate.

(Despite her bravado, Ilirya shifts from a snarling fox with flattened ears to a silent coral snake, slithering across the jungle floor to curl up her leg and slip under her shirt.)

"Kiddos," Garp bellows, flash stepping closer, the sheer force of his _presence _making her blink. "Who's ready to be a _marine?" _

Cue the chorus of dismay.

(Ace is eyeing Garp warily, no doubt expecting him to lash out with a 'fist of love' at any moment, but Valentine is well aware that this old dog is well and truly muzzled, courtesy of Makino.)

Garp steps forward, grinning, and she blinks curiously as he gives her a literal double take, attention skating right past her before snapping back to focus on her eyes.

Then she nearly bites her tongue because Garp is _in front of her, _a scant foot away, kneeling, casting a shadow with his hulking form and peering closely.

"...Where'd you get those peepers, kid?" Garp's brow is furrowed, eyes narrowed, and - in times like these, at least - Valentine can clearly see the Luffy in him, 'cause it looks like he's thinking hard enough that steam might start venting outta his ears at any minute now.

"I ate a devil fruit," Valentine offers warily, not quite confident enough to take a step back.

The boys are silent, tensed and ready to run, wary, dæmons clinging to arms and shoulders. (Garp's St. Bernard whuffs, tail wagging, but none of them are reassured.)

A split second after she speaks, Garp's face clears as if his 'thinking expression' had never been. (Valentine pictures someone sweeping the entire contents of a desk onto the floor with a mighty windmilling of the arms and a thunderous _crash.) _"Alrighty then," Garp says, cheerful, straightening up to his (ridiculous) height. "Marine training!"

(It's not a question.)

* * *

"Garp-san," Valentine says quietly.

It's drizzling lightly, warm summer rain. It trickles down her skin, dampening her kerchief from dark green to near-black, magnolia leaves slick with water.

"I've told you a thousand times, brat. Call me _jii-chan_." Garp's voice is gruff, matter-of-fact and insistent in that way he has.

(Despite herself, she can't hate him.

She wonders if Luffy and Ace and Sabo and- her? If they're the only remaining family he has. Excepting, of course, Monkey D. Dragon, his estranged, revolutionary son.

The most wanted man in the world, enemy number one of every marine that sails the seas.

Who does he have, in the closing chapters of his long, long life? Did he have a wife?

No wonder he wants them to join the navy. If they take any other path, every time they come face-to-face, they'll stand on opposing sides.)

The rain patters on the leaves, the rocky soil. They might have to go inside, soon. (Garp in their hideout, good god. She doesn't think she can picture it. Or that she wants to.)

Ace and Sabo are sparring at the moment, but Garp has them all rotating through different match-ups, and between all the spouted marine propaganda - which he lets loose in a truly sickening deluge - and the shouts of encouragement, he's been dispensing snippets of actually helpful combat advice. Which is an unexpected, though pleasant, surprise.

(Luffy is practicing his _gomu gomu no…! _pistols, determinedly and fueled entirely by the desire to prove Garp wrong, because - while Valentine only winced sympathetically when he did it - Garp laughed uproariously at Luffy's first demonstration of his progress, and that's gotta hurt.

Inaccurate or not, Luffy still punches hard enough to shake the branches of the tree he's colliding with, over and over, splintering the trunk by inches. Once Luffy fixes his aim and develops a sense for precision, Valentine knows those punches are gonna _hurt. _

'Garp the Fist.' One of his many monikers, yes, but it comes from somewhere. Figures it runs in the family.)

"Ojii-san," Valentine allows, ignoring the startled look Garp levels in her direction.

(Old as he is, different and changed by the world, in some ways, Garp is just like Luffy. His expression is an open book.)

"I've developed what I believe to be Observation Haki," she says. "I'd like your opinion, if you can give it to me."

Garp's eyebrows fly up as he guffaws, uproarious, ever-expressive. Over the sound of the rain, his laughter doesn't trail into quiet. It cuts off abruptly and he scoffs, the bark of noise making her jolt, biting her cheek with nerves.

"Don't mess with me, kid," Garp rumbles, traces of laughter lingering on his smile-prone face. "I didn't take you as the mischievous type. How did you even learn that word, anyways? It's not a toy to be playing around with."

"I'm not playing around," Valentine says.

She closes her eyes.

Her senses shift, tuning to another channel, reaching further into the metaphysical, and-

Holy shit. Garp's presence is _huge. _

Luffy and Ace and Sabo are like sparks. Whispers. She attributed that to her own fledgling haki sense, honed over months of sessions in the meadow, now, improving by inches, not thinking that-

Garp's aura is like a miniature sun. So _bright, _shedding power and light, radiant and destructive. It's a bit creaky, closer to a waning star (don't think about it-) than a young supernova, but it's utterly, incomprehensibly powerful.

"Holy _fuck," _she says aloud.

Her eyes fly open and Garp is looking at her intently.

Brow furrowed, mouth downturned in a frown. Garp has salt and pepper hair, even if his beard is dark, still, and he's getting older, weaker, waning, but she is now_ fully _aware of the power that lays within his mountainous frame. For some reason, she's been thinking of him as an annoyance to endure - he used to hit Luffy, he's from the marines, he's never here - but now-

Her perspective has just been shoved into dizzying awareness. This man could destroy this whole island, if he wanted. He could shatter the ground beneath their feet. He could.

"An observation prodigy, huh?" Garp mutters, barely audible, narrowed eyes trained on her face. There's a sheen of something over his eyes, not visible but entirely _visible, _and with a jolt she realizes that he's turned his attention to_ her, _his own haki focusing the full weight of its burning breadth to her spark, her fleeting, watchful eyes.

His St. Bernard is doing it, too, her usual energy absent and concentrated, pressed keen and razor sharp. She's eerily still, tail unwagging, staring straight at Valentine's chest, where - under her shirt - Ilirya is curled up.

Valentine is speechless. Even with her eyes open, she strains to keep her haki sense actively engaged; she looks towards him, unsure of what her own expression even is, and she can _see _the power haloing around him, wavering like a heat haze.

She blinks and it's gone.

"How do you know about this?" Garp says, and he's deadly serious. Frowning, for once, and it looks just as frightening and ominous on him as it looks on Luffy, the rarely-seen crackle of an oncoming storm, except Garp really _is _a natural disaster in the shape of a man, Luffy's potential filled and honed and changed over a lifetime of battle.

She is more than slightly off-kilter. "It just… woke up," she says. "Though I'm pretty sure it was my devil fruit," she adds, honest, the truth bent but not broken, twisted and uncertain. It's not a lie, right? She really has been thinking that the timing can't be a coincidence. "Nobody told me, or anything. I just…" She trails off mutely, shrugs hopelessly, taps her forefinger to her temple. "Know."

Garp looks at her, the expression on his face matching the look in his eyes and both fleeting, utterly indescribable. "Nobody's been teaching you?"

"No," she says. Truth. "I've been working on it on my own."

"You haven't seen anyone with red hair recently, have you?" Garp says, and-

_Ah. _

"No," she confirms, a trickle of relief tracing over her face with the droplets of rain, gentle and barely felt. She watches Garp's expression relax. _Not recently. _"Not unless you count Mrs. Horton, in the village, and her hair is more of an auburn…"

_Not that I'd sell out Shanks even if he had been here. Shanks, teaching us about haki on Dawn Island… what a wild story that would be. _She's not quite relaxed enough for a smile to play over her lips, but her neutral frown lightens, smooths out. _Not mine, unfortunately. _

"You'll be a marine," Garp says gruffly, a non-sequitur, patting her on the back several times in quick succession. She barely manages not to get knocked entirely off her seat on the log, the force of even a gentle pat barrelling through her. His handspan is bigger than the width of her back, and the power within it is staggering, entirely separate from the haki that he must be able to wield with near-mastery, and-

(Garp accepting her knowledge of haki (not just the power, the _name) _coming from her - to his knowledge - still-unnamed devil fruit is too good to be true. She _knows _Garp isn't stupid, and though he can be a little dim at times, surely he isn't overlooking _this, _right? No, he was so serious when he asked if she'd learned it from anyone.

Why is he letting it go?

_Well, _she thinks, bracing herself for her follow-up, galvanizing, _don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?) _

"Can you teach me? Us?" she amends, speaking quickly. _Talk before you lose your nerve. _"About haki?"

Garp chortles, and in the space of a heartbeat it breaks into full blown laughter, echoing over the rain and the sound of Luffy's mantra, Sabo and Ace's familiar soundtrack of combat, the quiet sounds of the forest in the rain. "Do you _really _think you kiddos could unlock it? You're good, for brats, but you're not _that _good. Plus…" he looks at her. "What makes you think you rebellious brats even have the-" and he says something too unique to be translatable, here- "to learn?"

_(Determination, _you could say, but that wouldn't be quite true. _Chutzpah _is better, a word from her roots, that _something, _determination and resolve and heart all in one.)

"You said I was an observation prodigy," she murmurs, circumventing his challenge, curious.

"Comes along every once in a while," Garp grunts, begrudging, challenge fading from his eyes, hands settling on his knees. He sighs, weary, as his joints pop, and in that moment, he looks every single one of his years.

"Kids with Conqueror's. Armament. Kids with hard childhoods, usually, natural ability pushed to unlocking early… if they're trained, their power can be some of the best."

Valentine doesn't react to the mention of conqueror's, of armament, staring ahead at the boys, the warmly familiar form of Ilirya curling in shifting scales under her shirt.

"I got armament when I was seven. Hell of a story…" He laughs, but his good humor fades immediately, sours. "Course, that damn red-hair was one, too. From the second he set foot on that hellbound ship, that piano-key goatee first mate turned him into a weapon… a nine-year old spitfire with a smile just like that damn captain, knocking down trained marines…" Garp grits his teeth and sighs, distant, eyes lost in memories. "'Course, you don't have to unlock haki early to get good at using it. Didn't unlock my own observation 'til I was in my thirties! Another hell of a story." He shoots her a sidelong glance. "You still listening, pipsqueak?"

"To every word."

Garp chuffs, pleased despite himself, grumbling. "Right, well. It's dangerous, is what I'm saying. Even if you managed to unlock observation on your own, that ain't proof you can get the rest. And that's t'say nothin' about those other brats. The day my airheaded grandson unlocks haki…" He scoffs. "He's gotta learn to throw a good right hook, first."

Garp isn't entirely wrong.

She turns, looks him in the eye. Her resolve sharpens, eyes glittering, hands clenched into fists on her knees.

She won't lie.

"I don't know what I can do," she starts carefully, tentative and rawly honest. "I wasn't even- I wasn't even sure what I've been feeling is haki. But I want to know… I want to know how to be better at it." She inhales, eyes shuttering shut for a beat, opening again, gaze firm. "You never know if you don't at least try, right? If you'd teach me…"

She bows her head.

"I promise that if you'd honor me with your teachings, I'd do my absolute best, and… I'd use everything you taught me to try and do good. I'd never use it to be selfish, cruel, or cowardly. And if I did make things bad, I'd- I'd make up for it. I'd make it right." She blinks at the ground, head hazy. Where did that come from?

Apparently, what she's said is funny, because that startles a raucous laugh out of Garp. Uproarious, as all his laughs are, fullbodied. She jerks her head up out of her shallow bow, startled, as he quakes like a mountain range with the force of his guffaws.

"...For good, huh?" He wipes away a tear of mirth, and she reddens. "You've really got your mom in ya. That little speech was all Makino, right there."

She swallows and looks away.

"If you can show me that you really mean that," he says, "I'll teach you, kid." Garp's voice is firm, oddly serious in a way she hasn't heard from him before. She looks out to Luffy, determinedly punching the tree again and again _(so different from the beginning, even if the silvery scars across his knuckles haven't quite faded, skin split open from pushing too far too fast-) _and growing, improving, even as she watches, hands resilient and knuckles dusted with bruises, not blood. And then to Sabo and Ace, lashing out with flurries of punches and kicks, rough brawling honed like blades from pushing against each other, improving and growing like weeds, tenacious, perpetuating, life sparking determined and strong.

Her heart is full of feeling, but the empty spaces echo, still.

"And even if I _did _happen to teach you, you couldn't expect quick results," Garp huffs, scratching at his cheek as if he can't believe he's even agreeing. "Stuff like this takes years, and I can't stick around."

She nods, accepting.

She knows.

His voice is gruff. "You'll be a fine marine. Do good, huh…?" Garp laughs again, but it's quieter, and he looks tired as he runs a massive palm over his beard. What he says next is barely audible. "Haven't heard that one in a while."

* * *

She doesn't thank him.

* * *

(Thank god Garp doesn't try to lecture them on the theory of haki.

She can just imagine Luffy's childish, impatient tone - _Val already told us about this, _petulant, pouting - and the suspicious stare Garp would shoot her immediately thereafter.

Yeah, she's glad Garp is more of a kinetic teacher.)

* * *

"How are you all, just, vaguely disastrous? I was gone for an _hour." _

She can't keep the incredulity out of her voice, staring at the wrecked interior of their hideout. Most of the really important stuff is intact - the sake cups hanging on the wall in a small bit of stolen fisherman's net, the chests full of clothes, their reservoir - but the table is smashed, the blankets are torn, and the pillows are gone or exploded, shedding feathers everywhere. Even the rug is stained and ripped, a huge patch of brownish red (is that _blood?) _marring the woven surface.

She levels a flat stare at Sabo.

"Wha- I don't-" Sabo splutters, visibly wilting. "I'm- you're- there's- there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this."

"Oh yeah?" Her expression doesn't change.

"It was Garp," Ace says flatly, arms crossed and expression in what she likes to (privately) call his 'neutral frowny face.' "He just left for today to go back to the village. He's staying at Makino's." Ace's voice holds a hint of the not insignificant sense of incredulous betrayal he must be feeling. "Sabo pulled the stupidest move of the century-"

…And as the whole rest of the story comes out - Luffy chiming in with wildly inaccurate additions every couple seconds, Sabo looking more and more harrowed as each condemning fact makes its own dramatic debut - Valentine can't do anything but sigh.

"Renovation time?" Sabo sidles up to her cajolingly, slinging an arm around her shoulder and rubbing at the tense muscle of her bicep, carefully avoiding putting pressure on his bruises or her own. The warmth and weight of him makes her _harrumph, _and she turns her face away from him, but she's softening.

(When she's _really _pissed, people touching her only makes her angrier. But when she's cooling down, a little bit of cuddle tends to bring her down all the way. He _is _sorry, after all, and he _did _say it…

It's difficult to tell exactly when touch will make her angry and when it'll make it easier, but Sabo can read her like a book and he ruthlessly exploits it. Bastard.)

Valentine sighs, rubbing her temples with her thumbs. She ignores Luffy's cheer in the background, Ace and Sabo's relieved grins. "Alright. Renovations."

* * *

One 'game' that Garp plays - one that they've all begrudgingly come to enjoy, over multiple visits, beyond the reflexive terror, not that they'd admit it - is 'chase.'

Chase involves the four of them running like hell, obviously, while Garp chases them down. Lacking any corporal-punishment rights, he seizes his chosen victim and tosses them into the nearest river when (not if) he catches them. (Excluding Luffy, of course, for obvious reasons.) If they're far away from any rivers (or other bodies of water) when he grabs them, then it's a practice in futile escape attempts as Garp makes his way over to the nearest one. And Garp _always _knows the location of the nearest one.

(She very carefully does not think of anything from the past when she's tucked under the unforgiving weight of a beefy arm, struggling.)

Valentine - who has become abruptly unable _not _to notice Garp - has resultantly become proportionally better at Chase. It's every man for himself, in this game, half-competition of who can go the longest without getting caught and half a battle of wits as they sprint through the jungle, pulling on knowledge of shortcuts and surrounding hazards and terrain, and though she's worked together with Sabo or Luffy more than once when she comes across them - she's not heartless, after all - this game isn't a game about retaliation. It's a game about _running._

Needless to say, Valentine forgets about her devil fruit until Garp's seized her in his inescapable, stupidly massive hands.

"Wait!" she yells, struggling, Ilirya shifting like mad and lunging at Garp's St. Bernard dæmon with fangs, talons, claws. (Is it Valentine's imagination, or is the dog deflecting Ilirya's attacks with contemptuous ease?) Panic chokes her throat, makes her fumble her words. "Don't- I can't-"

The rest of her sentence is swallowed by a shriek as she goes flying, arcing through the air, flailing as wind rushes past her face-

She hits the frothing surface of the river with a _splash. _

All she can think is _I can't die here, I won't, _but she's fully under and she can't breathe and she can't move at all, and horror rises in her ears as the world goes muffled, she can't breathe, she can't _breathe,_ where's Ilirya, where's her _dæmon- _

Something seizes her.

She breaks the surface of the water with a greedy gulp of riverwater and air, a gasp, a wrenching cough. A hand bigger than her torso has got a hold on her arm, anchoring, immovable.

She realizes, absently, that water at drowning-height for her is still standing-height for Garp. Also, she can't stop coughing. "I gotcha," Garp says, maybe, or that could just be the water in her ears.

"Forgot," he offers her gruffly, pounding at her back with one massive hand. It very definitively is _not _helping her cough up a lung. "Won't happen again."

Ilirya curls around her arm, reassuring, and well, he almost killed her, but he made up for it immediately after, so she figures it's even.

* * *

Time passes. Garp leaves. They're all happy to see him go.

(Except in the corners of their hearts where they aren't, not at all.)

* * *

Sabo's missing front tooth grows back in.

They're all in varying stages of tooth-losing, which is a phase that Valentine isn't fond of revisiting, but she musters through it. As she remembers doing, as soon as any of her teeth start to feel wiggly - an odd, alien sensation, but she can roll with it - she pokes at it with her tongue and worries it back and forth absently, savoring the odd metallic taste of blood in her mouth, ruthlessly yanking it out, eventually, when it feels loose.

The first time she loses patience and yanks out a tooth, it's on the hunt. Sabo, hearing her muffled curse, like her mouth is full, glances behind himself absently-

He yelps at the fountain of blood pouring down her chin.

"Val, _what?" _Sabo's voice goes high pitched and squeaky, and then _Luffy _looks (and so does Ace) and it's a whole thing. It's like none of them have ever yanked out a tooth before.

...Apparently, Ace and Sabo just let theirs fall out on their own. Weirdoes.

Luffy hasn't lost any of his yet, but after seeing Valentine with her face all bloody from pulling one of hers out, he's morbidly excited. Go figure.

* * *

Nobody grows rice here (something about the climate being too dry?), but the whole of Goa gets a lot of it imported, mostly for consumption by the common folk in Foosha and other outlying villages because it's so cheap. And there's a _huge _barrel of it in Dadan's storeroom, which means-

She nudges Luffy's hand away with the back of the spoon. "S'not done, Lu."

"But it smells so gooood," Luffy whines, arms snapping back to his sides like rubber bands, and it _does. _He's not wrong.

(She keeps a gentle touch with Luffy.

It's half-Makino's doing and half-hers, gentle reprimands and soft words in the place of violence and punishment, but she greatly prefers it. Now, when she wants Luffy to listen - because it's _important - _all she has to do is let him know with the cast of her eyes, the lilt of her voice, her hands.

And the thing is- Luffy has got such a high emotional intelligence that that's all he needs! Luffy doesn't _need _to be hit to know that whatever he's done is wrong or bad, and fuck anyone who says otherwise.

...Which means that if he keeps doing whatever thing he's doing even when your body language tells him to stop, then he's ignoring you. Boy, that'll be fun to deal with later.)

The rice smells so good, this time around, because instead of using river water (boiled to kill germs and microorganisms, but still, doesn't do much for flavor) they're using chicken stock. And by 'they' she means she. _She's _the one who got the extra soup broth from Makino, after all, though she employed Ace's help to lug the whole pot of it back to the forest.

It's been cooking away for a while, and the proportions of liquid to rice have been eyeballed, but that's fine. If she fucks it up she can say it's a risotto and none of them will know the difference.

* * *

"Heya, Val. Why d'ya got those flowers on the table?"

"I like 'em."

"Why?"

"Cause they're pretty and they smell nice, Luffy," she says patiently, reaching over and plucking a posy out of the bowl. The bowl itself was a gift, of course, from-

"They smell nice?" Luffy looks curious, scrambles over to the table and shoves his nose into the blooms.

Valentine doesn't bother stifling her smile.

"I guess they're alright. Better than trash! But meat smells better. Do y'think-"

"You can't eat the flowers, Luffy."

Luffy's cheeks puff out and his lips purse in a moue of confusion. "Then what's the point of them?"

Valentine smiles ruefully, stroking at the petals.

"I think they're pretty. That's all."

"Why? All the colors? But you got all those colors, too. You don't need the flowers."

That startles a genuine laugh out of her. Her mirthful peal of laughter rings out over the trees, the faraway birds winging off into the distance, the leaves rustling in the canopy.

"I like flowers a lot, Luffy," she says, grinning. "Plenty of them have colors I don't have, anyways. And even if they didn't…" A mischievous smile curls over her lips. "You and Ace have the same hair color. Does that mean we should only keep one of you?"

"No!" Luffy yelps, a look of almost comical dismay breaking over his face. "No way!"

Valentine laughs again.

* * *

"Was it a good thing?" Ace says. "That I was born?"

"You know," Valentine murmurs, staring at the sky, "Sometimes, I ask the same question about myself."

Ace's head whips to the side, staring at her incredulously from where he lays, hands pillowed behind his head. _"What? _You?"

The clover meadow is peaceful, sun bakingly hot, the vast expanse blue and cloudless, and-

She laughs humorlessly, keeping her eyes skywards. "Surprising, right? You'd never think so. I try so hard, train so I can be strong and stay alive…"

She trails off, staring into the blue. She can feel Ace's eyes on her, feel the weight behind his words, nonchalantly delivered and entirely, heartbreakingly meant, a non-sequitur from their earlier, peaceful ramblings.

"It's not so often anymore," she says, "but I used to ask myself all the time if it was really a good thing that I'm here. Maybe ASLV would be better without me, you know? ASL instead." She smiles, a wry quirk of the lips.

"That's so damn stupid," Ace says, voice hoarse and clear and laced with the fierce whipcrack of lightning. "We wouldn't be- we wouldn't be _us _without you."

"No," she agrees easily. "You'd all be different. But it may be better that way."

"Like hell," he says, "like _hell. _I can't even- that's so stupid. If you weren't here, then Sabo would be- and Luffy would- and _I-" _

He's stumbling over his words, uncharacteristic. "I can't even picture it. How it'd be if- if you weren't here." He reaches over to clasp her wrist, eyes intent on her face, even as she looks towards the sky.

Rels and Ilirya are curled off to the side, a cat and a fox.

"Then how," she says, "do you think I feel when you ask me that question?"

She turns to look at him slowly, cheek pillowing on the clover, expression melancholy and thoughtful as she looks into his wide eyes. His hand burns, on her wrist.

"I can't give you the answer I think you're looking for, Ace. Do you wanna know the truth?"

She smiles softly, unyielding, hand twitching out of his grasp, curling up to twine her fingers with his. His grip, at first, is slack, eyes dark and startled, but a heartbeat passes and he's gripping her hand almost bruisingly tight.

"I love you," she says simply. "I'll always be glad you were born. I'd kill to keep you alive, and I don't know what I'd do without you in my life. I…" she fails to swallow the knot thickening her throat. "I can't tell you to keep looking for the answer. Because… I'm selfish, and this is _my _answer. The only answer I'll ever be able to give you."

She focuses on the sky in his eyes, the stormclouds, deep and unfathomable. She looks past his stunned expression and into the core of it, his emotion, his sorrow and uncertainty, burning orange and toxic like poison, like fire.

"Yes. I think it's a good thing you were born."

* * *

"Did you ever want to talk about it?" she says to him, one day.

"Hm?"

"What your parents did to you."

Sabo pauses.

The smallest hitch in his movements gives him away. A moment later, he's scrubbing the shirt like nothing's wrong - one of Ace's tank tops - and gazing into the gently churning whitewater of the river, expression neutral.

"I don't see the point."

Her movements are even, efficient and practiced, methodical as she scrubs at one of Luffy's shirts. Sabo's movements are a little rougher, unused to doing laundry as he is, but he's managing.

"There's always a point. Talking about things is how we process them."

"I don't see how."

"It's just talking out loud. It's the same for everything, you know. That's why I kept trying to figure out my devil fruit with you. Talking helped me think about it."

"Well, maybe I don't _want _to think about it."

He stops scrubbing.

Good timing. He'd been washing the same spot for almost a minute. Any longer and he might've worn a hole in it.

"Why?"

"What's the _point?" _He doesn't stand, doesn't leave, but he looks, abruptly, like he wants to.

Sabo is not a person who runs away from people, or his problems. But even this…

It's never fun to start. Starting is the worst part.

"I'm always okay to listen," she says to him, soft. She starts rinsing Luffy's shirt, dunking it in the moving water and letting the suds wash away. "It doesn't burden me at all to hear about what happened. If it helped you at all, it'd make me happy."

"Why don't _you _talk to me, then?"

Sabo is scrubbing at the next shirt.

She considers it.

(The water keeps flowing. Never stopping, never stilling. Isn't that how it goes?)

"Did I ever tell you about how I killed Porchemy?" she asks, knowing the answer.

"...No." Sabo's voice is quiet.

"He wanted my hair," she says, hands deft and unfaltering as she folds, leaning to put the shirt in the 'clean' basket. "And he was taking me somewhere so he could get it. This was after you got taken. I'd been suffocated, but that type of unconsciousness doesn't last long when you can get air back immediately after, so I woke up while he was carrying me off."

Sabo is silent.

"I pretended to be unconscious while I planned. I didn't have my pipe, or any of you guys… just Ilirya. I think it was the first time since I met Luffy that I had been truly, actually alone."

She grabs a new shirt and starts to scrub.

"I surprised him. I used Ilirya's power to outmaneuver him. I only punched him once, you know. After that, I stole his pistol."

She pauses.

"I didn't shoot him right away," she says, soft. "I didn't want to."

She swallows.

_I didn't want to. _

A beat.

"But I did. He said-" _he'd torture and kill Luffy, then me, make Ace watch- _"-some things I won't repeat. And I couldn't let them happen. I wasn't strong enough to let him live, so I killed him."

_(The squeals of a pig, splattered blood and brain and bone and a ruined face, a soul falling into golden dust, the hiss of rain fading into eternity-)_

"And that's that," she finishes softly, rinsing off the next shirt.

Sabo speaks.

_(I think, until then, _she doesn't say, _I didn't know the price of being alone. _

_I know better now, exactly what to do. So I never have to pay it.) _

* * *

"How are you _doing _that?"

"Hm?" Valentine is panting and sweating, still on-guard. Ace won't try to take her out while they're talking, or anything, but he's fast enough that she can't afford to relax, even for a conversation. "Wha?"

"You keep moving before I swing." Ace's eyes are narrowed, shrewd, perceptive. "And it's not just this time! It's been happening for a couple weeks. I swing but you're already moving out of the way."

"Oh," Valentine says, because _oh. _

Oh.

—

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**Notes:**

So many notes...! Such a long chapter, too. I hope y'all enjoyed. I've had it written and posted on ao3 for a while (Echoes has a lot more readers there, oddly enough), but with such kind and anticipatory reviews here, I had to go ahead and format it for posting here as well. :)

I'm on hiatus for now (not sure exactly how long), because this is the last chapter before a timeskip!

That being said, onto the actual notes. :V

-the song Val is humming is titled (fittingly) 'Hum' by Clara C. The yt link to the song is embedded in the ao3 chapter, but I couldn't make the formatting work here. :/

-the note for 'bloom' in the original version of Hum is not actually D-sharp. If I'm not mistaken, it's something from a G chord! (could be wrong tho, I don't have perfect pitch ^^;)

-'Think About It' by American Authors is the anthem for this whole arc! (I can't quote the fitting lyrics in order to entice you into listening to it, or else I'd be quoting the whole song. It may or may not be your style, but damn is it fitting!)

-If you're at all curious (which I'm sure you're not, it's just a small detail), Ilirya's preferred 'long-furred cat' form is a Norwegian Forest Cat/Ragdoll mix. Both of which are fitting for a number of reasons. The coloration varies!

-Aaaand, if you recognized the moniker 'oncoming storm' and Val's little speech to Garp, that's because it's a poorly hidden Doctor Who reference! I wanted to pay homage, just for fun. :)

This chapter is dedicated to all you wonderful reviewers. :D

(Y'all really did inspire me to get off my ass and format this chapter for posting here, so I'm being entirely honest...! :'D)

It'll be a while 'til next time, but I hope you enjoy the chapter. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind reviews!

I'll see you after the time skip. :)


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